Growing Golden Squash Puts Zhao Hengyan on the Road to Prosperity

Recently, while visiting Hesh eng Town in Ning County, this writer saw in Yangzhuang Village a stretch of fertile fields, a sea of green like an oil painting. But amid all this green, gleaming "golden squash" peeked out. Looking closer, the so-called "golden squash" turned out to be the golden thread pumpkins that Zhao Hengyan and his wife intercropped this year, but in Zhao Hengyan's words, these are his family's "gold ingots."

Zhao Hengyan and his wife have long been the village's wealth-building talents. In 2015 they established the Ning County Yuanfang Farmers' Professional Cooperative to grow apple trees. This year, he again dared to change his thinking, tried to develop a new money-making industry, and began growing golden thread pumpkins on a small scale.

When this writer asked about their golden thread pumpkin harvest, Zhao Hengyan said with joy all over his face: "This year, well, I was still too timid. Mainly because it was the first time growing them, I only planted 25 mu. These pumpkins can grow 650 plants per mu, each plant can bear up to 3 pumpkins, and each pumpkin weighs 2 kg on average, so the total harvest comes to nearly 200,000 jin. The price is still a bit low right now, so we've already put them in storage. By the end of the year, when the purchase price reaches about 2 yuan per jin, we'll sell, and then we can make more than 400,000 yuan. The profit from growing golden thread pumpkins is 2 to 3 times higher than growing corn or wheat."

According to technicians at the county's agricultural technology center, golden thread pumpkins are drought-tolerant and tolerant of poor soil, have short internodes, have strong fruiting capacity, and are suitable for close planting, making them very well suited to cultivation. Grown in the open field now, they produce only one crop a year; with a warm shed, two or three crops a year can be achieved.

Zhao Hengyan's wife is the village's Women's Federation director. She hopes that by growing golden thread pumpkins and mastering all the stages, including planting, management and care, and sales, she can lead more fellow villagers to build wealth together next year, and strive to make the "golden squash" industry another specialty industry of the village.