Why is this year's winter jujube especially sweet?
Right now is the peak season for winter jujubes hitting the market. When people mention winter jujubes, they naturally think of Zhanhua, Shandong. Zhanhua winter jujubes are famous, and many places have introduced Zhanhua winter jujubes and, in light of local conditions, carried out variety improvement and technical innovation, which in turn has given a boost to Zhanhua winter jujubes. How can Zhanhua winter jujubes continue to lead? How can winter jujube varieties from different places learn from and keep pace with one another? Today's market scan selects several major winter jujube production areas and invites readers to sense the renewal of winter jujube varieties and the sweet prosperity of the winter jujube industry.
Zhandong No. 2 winter jujube: another front-runner emerges from the first tier
"Thin skin, crisp flesh, sweet taste - this is the new Zhanhua winter jujube variety we grow, 'Zhandong No. 2.' Our family's jujubes basically follow the experts' technical guidance, using more organic fertilizer, more biological and physical pest control, and less pesticide. That's why we have winter jujubes with their original flavor, and that's how we can enter the competition and win a big award." Recently, in Youfang Village, Gucheng Town, Zhanhua District, Binzhou City, Shandong Province, jujube grower Ding Xizhang told reporters. On closer inquiry, it emerged that thanks to the new "Zhandong No. 2" variety and standardized planting techniques, Ding Xizhang won the grand prize in the winter jujube competition held on September 27.
Guo Qinghong, deputy director of the Zhanhua District Winter Jujube Industry Office and dean of the Zhanhua Winter Jujube Research Institute, introduced that the Zhanhua winter jujube is a rare and precious fresh-eating variety among China's jujube tree resources, renowned at home and abroad for its excellent fresh-eating quality, strong adaptability and unique ripening period. In recent years, due to consecutive years of planting, the Zhanhua winter jujube has suffered from problems such as variety degeneration, mixed strains, declining quality and weak ability to withstand market risks. In response, Zhanhua started with purifying strains and selecting and breeding superior varieties, and through comparative trials of multiple strains successfully selected an excellent Zhanhua winter jujube variety - the "Zhandong No. 2" tetraploid new variety.
"Zhandong No. 2" is a superior late-maturing fresh-eating jujube variety selected and bred from Zhanhua winter jujubes. It ripens in mid-to-late October and features large fruit, a flat-round shape, a glossy surface, thin skin, crisp flesh, abundant juice, good taste, high sugar content and rich nutrition, with excellent quality. Moreover, "Zhandong No. 2" has strong adaptability, resists cold and drought, tolerates saline-alkali and barren soil, and has extremely high economic value.
Guo Qinghong introduced that compared with traditional winter jujubes, "Zhandong No. 2" has three particularly prominent characteristics: First, its growth vigor is moderate and its branching ability is weak, making it easy to set fruit. Only a very small number of buds on "Zhandong No. 2" can sprout into jujube head branches; unlike traditional Zhanhua winter jujubes, where every jujube spur sprouts into a jujube head, this reduces the labor required each year for bud removal, and the moderate tree vigor concentrates nutrients and increases the fruit-setting rate. Second, the jujube flower ovary is relatively large, the fruit is attractive in appearance and relatively large. "Zhandong No. 2" is about twice the size of ordinary winter jujubes and grows quickly, averaging more than 20 grams each, with a beautiful appearance, whereas traditional Zhanhua winter jujubes have diverse fruit shapes - round, long-oval, highly irregular - and uneven fruit sizes. Third, the quality is better. "Zhandong No. 2" has thinner skin, more juice, a crisper and sweeter taste and richer nutrition, and its soluble solids content is 1.3 times that of ordinary Zhanhua winter jujubes.
Based on the above reasons, Zhanhua has made accelerating the promotion of the new "Zhandong No. 2" variety a main lever for driving the transformation and upgrading of the winter jujube industry. Relying on an efficient Zhanhua winter jujube rapid-propagation system composed of a jujube tree scion orchard, the China Improved Jujube Variety Gene Bank, the China Bohai High-Tech Seedling Breeding Farm and others, and through a combination of planned close planting and green cultivation techniques, it has explored and innovated rapid propagation and green, efficient cultivation techniques for "Zhandong No. 2," and researched and established a close-planting cultivation model and supporting technical measures for early fruiting, high yield, high quality and high efficiency in "Zhandong No. 2," laying a variety and technical foundation for rapid promotion.
Since 2014, Zhanhua has stipulated that for newly built or converted "Zhandong No. 2" planting areas of more than 50 mu in concentrated contiguous plots, a reward of 500 yuan per mu will be given, and 35,000 mu of "Zhandong No. 2" improvement area has been completed. As of now, the total Zhanhua winter jujube planting area has reached 500,000 mu, accounting for 65.6% of the country's total winter jujube planting area. In 2015, the district's total output exceeded 600 million jin, achieving sales revenue of 2 billion yuan and an industry output value of nearly 2.8 billion yuan, with per capita income of jujube growers exceeding 8,200 yuan.
Yuanling jujube eaten fresh: crisp jujubes sell for 3 million yuan a year
Not long ago, Li Hongzhong, secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee, came to Xiaogaozhuang Village, Jinghai Town, Jinghai District, for a survey, which really made this small village of only more than 100 households "popular," and the "Xiaogaozhuang" brand crisp jujubes became even more famous. During the "October 1" Golden Week, Xiaogaozhuang Village also held its first winter jujube picking festival, attracting many urban residents to come and pick and taste the fresh fruit. Walking into the winter jujube groves of Xiaogaozhuang Village, with more than 500 mu of land and 30,000 jujube trees, the fragrance of jujubes fills the air - this year is another bumper harvest!
The variety of Gaozhuang crisp jujube is "Yuanling jujube," which tastes refreshing, has thin skin and is sweet without being cloying. It has a long planting history, and the village has registered the "Xiaogaozhuang" brand crisp jujube trademark, making Xiaogaozhuang crisp jujubes a beautiful "calling card" for the village.
Villager Sun Lixing, who was knocking down jujubes with a bamboo pole, told reporters: "Although other places also have this variety, none tastes as good as ours here. The soil in our village is the sandy land left by our ancestors, which is suitable for growing crisp jujubes. This is our wealth!"
In the jujube orchard, village Party branch secretary Liu Zhenjie told reporters that "Xiaogaozhuang" crisp jujubes cannot be dried into dried jujubes and are not suitable for cold storage. The harvest season for crisp jujubes is generally from around September 10 each year to the end of the month, but after harvest they can be kept fresh for at most 7 days and can only be eaten fresh. Although the freshness period is short, Gaozhuang crisp jujubes are sold as far north as Heilongjiang and as far south as Shanghai, and are very popular.
Village committee director Hu Zhenqing introduced that their village earns nearly 3 million yuan a year from selling jujubes. The village has more than 400 people, and on average each villager earns 8,000 yuan from selling jujubes, making jujube sales an important source of income for the villagers. The village plans to cultivate 20,000 winter jujube saplings with high economic value and distribute them free to villagers. Through grafting, the existing crisp jujube trees will be renewed and upgraded to increase the profits of Xiaogaozhuang crisp jujubes.
At present, Jinghai Town is accelerating the construction of the Xiaogaozhuang winter jujube planting demonstration project and promoting the development of winter jujube planting areas in three villages: Xiaogaozhuang, Yidukou and Yutianzhuang.
Liu Zhenjie said that in the future the signboard of "Gaozhuang crisp jujube" should be made even brighter. The next step is to change old ways of thinking, take advantage of the resource strengths of cooperatives, do a good job in improving crisp jujube varieties, do a good job in branding, farmer-supermarket linkage and embracing e-commerce, and develop facility agriculture, pick-your-own visits and deep-processing production, and by improving the quality, packaging and logistics of crisp jujubes, increase their added value and better help villagers increase income and become prosperous.