Mature sea buckthorn fruit has an excellent flavor and good taste

September is the season when sea buckthorn ripens. A reporter from Economic Daily came to the sea buckthorn picking garden at the Tenihe Farm of Hulunbuir Nongken in Inner Mongolia, and saw tourists using specially made tools to pick the golden-yellow sea buckthorn berries, bustling with activity.

Since the comprehensive launch of the Grain for Green Project, Hulunbuir Nongken Group in Inner Mongolia has actively responded to the call, selecting the Tenihe Farm, which has geographical advantages, as a pilot site, converting the farm's original 260 mu of farmland back to forest, and building the first sea buckthorn planting base in the entire reclamation area. The direction of returning farmland to forest had already been made clear, but what tree species to plant became a difficult problem. In the past, the windbreak forests were all planted with poplar, which had little economic value. After extensive investigation and comparison, sea buckthorn fruit was successfully selected.

In 2006, Hulunbuir Nongken Group adopted the Vallarani rain-harvesting afforestation technique without irrigation, planting Russian large-fruit sea buckthorn and Heilongjiang small-fruit sea buckthorn in the garden according to a certain ratio. After years of cultivation and construction, the trees began to bear fruit successively starting in 2010, and now they are in the full fruit-bearing period of sea buckthorn, becoming an ecological garden that combines ornamental viewing and picking.

Last year, Hulunbuir Nongken held the first sea buckthorn picking festival at the Tenihe Farm planting base, receiving an average of more than 100 tourists per day. This year, they rode the momentum and held the second sea buckthorn picking festival during the golden period for sea buckthorn picking, lasting 1 month, attracting many out-of-town tourists who came by car or in groups to pick.

“Last year's sea buckthorn picking festival, I came twice. After I went back, my friends heard about it, and this year they insisted on coming with me, and we also agreed that every year when the sea buckthorn ripens we will meet at Hulunbuir Nongken.” Tourist Rongrong said to the reporter while picking sea buckthorn. Because Hulunbuir Nongken Group's sea buckthorn fruit is of excellent quality and tastes good, it can be processed into sea buckthorn juice and jam, and through deep processing can also extract products such as sea buckthorn oil and sea buckthorn tea. Tourists drawn by its reputation come in an endless stream, and the products are sold far away to first-tier cities such as Beijing, favored by consumers.

In recent years, Hulunbuir Nongken Group, in conjunction with the development of the big health industry, has implemented the Green Bank action, taking benefiting future generations and improving the ecological environment as its starting point, and transforming protective and greening afforestation into ecological and economic afforestation. The Tenihe Farm has gradually expanded the area of sea buckthorn forest, and the whole farm now has more than 2,000 mu of sea buckthorn.

It is understood that in the next 5 years, Hulunbuir Nongken Group also plans to build a 10,000-mu sea buckthorn garden, forming a large-scale sea buckthorn planting and picking base. Through investment promotion, it will develop a series of sea buckthorn products, extend the industrial chain, open up markets, create brands, drive the entrepreneurship and employment of farm workers, and achieve a win-win situation of ecological construction and economic benefits.