Passion fruit orchards fill the air with fragrance, Li Zhongguo cultivates a good life

Recently, this writer walked into Tianba Group, Zhaiyang Village, Mengxi Town, Songtao Miao Autonomous County. Looking from the village entrance toward Tianba, a large expanse of lush green plants covered the entire flatland like a green blanket, truly beautiful to see. Although it was winter, it looked like summer. According to local residents, that was Li Zhongguo's passion fruit orchard, and the whole family was there harvesting. In addition, 9 other local households had also planted passion fruit.

From the entrance of Zhaiyang Village to Li Zhongguo's passion fruit orchard in Tianba, there is a sandy road of more than 1000 m, and it takes only a few minutes to arrive. The passion fruit vines on the trellises were dense and lush, and passion fruits hung down like light bulbs through the grid of the trellises, making one's mouth water. In the orchard, I met Li Zhongguo and his wife, who were harvesting passion fruit, along with several busy workers. Li Zhongguo said he had always worked in the city, and when he returned home in 2014, he found large tracts of land in his hometown lying idle. In addition, the government was especially supportive of agricultural development, so he decided to return home to develop the business.

Li Zhongguo busy in the orchard

According to Li Zhongguo's introduction, his connection with passion fruit came about by chance. On his birthday in 2014, his son, who worked far away in Nanchang, sent him a box of passion fruit from Nanchang for his birthday. After receiving the passion fruit, he was deeply moved and felt his son was especially filial. But then he made a fool of himself because he did not know how to eat it. After opening it, he cut it with a knife and ate it directly; the aroma was too strong, and it was hard to swallow. Later his son called and told him how to eat it. He said: you need to add sugar, and only after adding boiled water does it taste good. His son also told him that passion fruit can not only be eaten as a beverage, but also has beauty-enhancing and anti-aging effects, and can also be used in traditional Chinese medicine, helping to refresh the mind, increase appetite, and aid digestion. Li Zhongguo thought, since passion fruit has so many benefits, and I was just worrying about having no way to develop, he set his sights on passion fruit.

In 2015, he discussed it with local farmer Li Jiefeng, planning for the two of them to work together. But they were afraid passion fruit might not adapt to the local climate, soil, and water conditions. Through inquiries, they found a fruit company in Guangxi, so they boarded a train to Liuzhou, Guangxi, determined to conduct an on-site inspection, examining the planting gardens and processing plants of Guangxi Liuzhou Caiyuan Fruit Industry Co., Ltd. That year, passion fruit seedlings were introduced from Guangxi for trial planting on 5 mu, and the trial planting result was very good. Therefore, Guangxi Liuzhou Caiyuan Fruit Industry Co., Ltd. was invited to Mengxi Zhaiyang for an on-site inspection. After obtaining the recognition of Guangxi Liuzhou Caiyuan Fruit Industry Co., Ltd., they signed a purchase contract with the company. He bought seedlings from the company, and the company was responsible for sending technical personnel to guide his planting and for buying back the passion fruit grown by Li Zhongguo, Li Jiefeng, and others at market prices.

With the company's technical guidance and purchasing, Li Zhongguo felt as if he had taken a reassurance pill. In March 2016, he and Li Jiefeng and 8 other households bought a batch of passion fruit seedlings from Caiyuan Fruit Industry Co., Ltd. at 3 yuan per plant. He planted 150 mu, and the other 8 households planted 600 mu. According to passion fruit planting requirements, cement posts should be poured, each 2.6 m long and inserted beside each passion fruit plant, so the seedlings could climb up along the posts. But due to insufficient funds, this year they used bamboo poles for all the trellises. Above row after row of trellises was netting carefully woven by Li Zhongguo and his wife, and the vines spread and intertwined over this netting. Because the passion fruit branches grew very luxuriantly, the fruit set heavily. In September this year, a strong wind blew down all the trellises. Looking at the fallen trellises, Li Zhongguo was heartbroken. With the help of the government and local residents, the orchard trellises have now all been set up again, and a long-lost smile appeared on Li Zhongguo's face once more. For a while, Li Zhongguo also noticed that the slowly growing fruits kept dropping continuously, which was distressing to see. What exactly was going on? After careful observation, he found that the fallen fruits were all due to root rot. He immediately consulted the technical adviser, found the root cause, and solved the problem according to the solution given by the adviser. The cost was not very high and the effect was very good.

In August this year, Li Zhongguo's passion fruit began to enter the ripening period, and a batch could be picked every 2 to 3 days. Caiyuan Fruit Industry Co., Ltd. was responsible for sending vehicles to the orchard in Tianba to purchase. According to market prices, the purchase price of his passion fruit reached as high as 7.6 yuan/kg. Until November, Li Zhongguo's passion fruit kept continuously bearing fruit and being harvested. He did the accounts for us: each mu of passion fruit could harvest about 1000 kg, with an output value of about more than 7000 yuan per mu, and the total output value of the entire orchard reached about 1 million yuan. Subtracting input of about 2800 yuan per mu, the net profit was more than 600,000 yuan. The other growers who planted passion fruit together with him also obtained no small income. Since passion fruit can be harvested for many years once planted and established, next year Li Zhongguo only needs to invest a little fertilizer and manual care, and then he can just wait for the harvest. Speaking of this, he said with a chuckle: "When the villagers saw that we succeeded in growing passion fruit, many of them also want to plant it with us!"

Li Zhongguo said that because it was his first time planting passion fruit, he had not taken some of the company technician's guidance to heart before, and some mistakes occurred in the technical and care process. Now, Li Zhongguo is thinking about how to grow passion fruit better, drive more people to plant it, and strive together with the villagers to make the passion fruit industry bigger and stronger, jointly taking the road out of poverty toward a moderately prosperous life.