Milk grapes help a farmer couple in Toksun County get rich
On June 2, the reporter came to the grape greenhouse of Dong Yueqiang and Dong Peimei, a farmer couple in Nanhu Village, Xia Township, **Toksun County. The grapes in the greenhouse were already hanging all over the branches, and the couple was busy pruning the grapes.
It is understood that the greenhouse grapes of the Dong Yueqiang couple are mainly of the Flame Seedless variety. At present, they have 10 standard greenhouses with 3 varieties of greenhouse grapes, and this year's output is expected to be about 15 tons. Because his grapes do not use any pesticides or chemical fertilizers, mainly using farmyard manure as base fertilizer, and using milk and a Chinese herbal medicine called kudouzi grass for flushing application and foliar fertilizer, the grapes he grows have excellent quality, taste and sugar content, and are deeply praised and loved by customers. The price is also higher than other grapes. Now he does not even need to go out, and merchants come to buy at his door in an endless stream, often with supply falling short of demand.
Dong Yueqiang said that he had originally grown grapes for more than ten years, but the returns were not very good. In 2010, he decided to go out and see how others grow grapes. After studying for two years, he believed that open-field grapes were rather cumbersome to uncover and bury, while greenhouse grapes saved a lot of effort, and because they are marketed out of season, their price is also higher than that of open-field grapes.
In 2012, the couple began trying to grow greenhouse grapes, specially introducing 12 new varieties from the interior, and together with the 3 varieties they had originally grown, they now have 15 grape varieties. Now each greenhouse can bring in 20,000 to 30,000 yuan per year. In 2015 alone, they earned 200,000 yuan, and together with interplanted milk watermelon, last year's total income was 260,000 yuan. Having tasted the benefits, the couple expanded the planting area this year and further improved their growing methods. This year's grapes matured nearly a month earlier than last year, and the income from milk watermelon alone has already reached more than 100,000 yuan.
“Both of us are genuine farmers, and our education level is not high either. In the past, our income could only maintain our current situation. Seeing others all getting rich one by one, we were also very anxious. Since growing greenhouse milk grapes and watermelon, the quality of life in our family has undergone earth-shaking changes. Now we have built a house and also bought a new car.” Dong Yueqiang's wife, Dong Peimei, said happily.
In June 2015, Dong Yueqiang and nearby farmers together established the Dong Shuangshuang Fine Fruit Industry Farmers' Professional Cooperative. Because both husband and wife are surnamed Dong, they registered their own trademark “Dong Shuangshuang”. In the future, it will be able to drive more farmers to enter greenhouses and develop facility agriculture, increasing farmers' income. Now his cooperative already has more than 20 members from ethnic minorities and the Han ethnic group, owns more than 40 greenhouses of grapes, and more than 260 mu of open-field grapes. Dong Yueqiang and his wife also have 12 mu of open-field Thompson Seedless grapes and 5 mu of experimental grapes of 18 new varieties.