Pears from ancient pear trees in Boye enter major supermarkets

Recently, the thousand-year-old ancient pear orchard in Shawo Village, Boye County, Hebei Province, was bustling with activity. Huangguan, Guifei, Hongxiangsu and other pear varieties here ripened one after another, and fruit farmers were busy picking, weighing, sorting and packing, preparing to ship them to Walmart supermarkets in Shanghai.

"Ancient trees have higher yields than ordinary pear trees, and the fruit is bright in color, thin-skinned, juicy and fine-fleshed, crisp in texture and better in taste, and sales at Walmart supermarkets in Shanghai have always been good. This year I have already purchased more than 200,000 kg of Huangguan pears and Hongxiangsu from here," said Du Hongqiang, a buyer from Suning County, Cangzhou.

The farmland of Shawo, Fengcun and other villages in Boye County is sandy loam soil, most suitable for growing fruit trees. The county has nearly 10,000 mu of Yali pear trees, with a history of more than 1,000 years. According to measurements and appraisal by experts from the provincial forestry department, there are nearly 80,000 ancient pear trees more than 100 years old in this area, including more than 2,500 trees more than 200 years old. According to the standard that trees more than 100 years old are rated as ancient trees, the pear tree community within Boye can be defined as a native ancient pear tree community. In recent years, under the guidance of forestry and fruit technology experts, fruit farmers have used new techniques such as top grafting to graft some Yali pears into market-favored pears such as "Huangguan Pear," "Guifei Pear" and "Hongxiangsu." At present, the county's pears have formed a staggered pattern of early-, mid- and late-maturing varieties, with Huangguan, Guifei and Hongxiangsu in mid-to-late August, and more than 10 varieties including Xuehua pear and Yali pear maturing in September and October.

The county's fruit farmers adhere to standardized production and pollution-free management, using farmyard manure from livestock and poultry for fertilization, and using pesticides with low toxicity and a residual period of no more than 7 days to prevent and control various pests. In order to control the weight of each pear at 0.35-0.40 kg, the fruit farmers strictly follow technical guidelines for flower and fruit thinning, so that the number of fruits and the size of each pear tree are kept within a certain standard range. They have also changed from the previous plastic film bagging to special paper bagging, and at the same time established more than 10 fruit professional cooperatives and registered trademarks such as "Jinfubao" and "Meijiafeng."

In order to increase fruit farmers' income and enhance the visibility of Boye's ancient pear trees, since 2014 the county has relied on the forestry and fruit industry to hold a pear-picking festival every August in the Baonan Plain area, attracting more and more buyers to come and purchase pears. Boye pears sell well in more than 20 large and medium-sized cities such as Beijing and Tianjin and in major supermarkets such as Walmart.

Cheng Pan'an, a fruit farmer in Shawo Village, said happily: "In the 200 mu pear orchard I contracted, most of the trees are more than 100 years old, and some have exceeded 200 years. The good fruit rate is above 95%, and the yield per mu is 4,000 kg. Calculated at this year's purchase price, plus the income brought by tourists picking fruit, the income per mu can reach more than 10,000 yuan, and the net income is more than 300,000 yuan." Forestry experts in the county did the math: the county's nearly 10,000 mu of pear trees can generate a total income of 70 million yuan this year, and from fruit trees alone, the per capita income of fruit farmers can reach more than 5,000 yuan.