Grape growing helps villagers of Xinmin Village in Yandu, Yancheng, get rich

The grape growing industry is one of the three "standalone champions" of our district's fruit and vegetable growing industry, alongside strawberries and tomatoes. Thanks to the new cultivation techniques adopted this year, the earliest grape variety in our district, Summer Black, is now being harvested and marketed in large quantities.

Recently, the reporter visited the Sunshine Vineyard in Xinmin Village, Panhuang Subdistrict, High-tech Zone, where the lush grape trellises were already heavy with fruit, and clusters of plump Summer Black grapes had taken on an enticing black hue. After a year of hard work, the vineyard's grapes have entered the harvest season. Workers are carefully cutting the ripe grapes and placing them into baskets.

Chen Changyang, the person in charge of the vineyard, told the reporter that Summer Black grapes are an early-maturing variety and generally do not ripen and reach the market until after mid-July. This year, however, they adopted a new forcing cultivation technique, applying lime nitrogen to the buds, which broke the dormancy period of the grape buds and forced the grapes to ripen early, bringing them to market one month earlier than in previous years, with an average benefit of 10,000 yuan per mu. At present, Summer Black grapes have reached their sales peak, with the vineyard selling 2 to 3 tons of Summer Black grapes per day, generating sales of around 20,000 yuan, mainly to major supermarkets and specialty fruit shops across the city.

According to Dong Zhaofu, secretary of the Party branch of Xinmin Village, the development of the grape growing industry has helped villagers in the village and surrounding areas prosper, increasing their wage income and business income. Villagers who work in the vineyard alone earn an annual income of more than 20,000 yuan. At present, Xinmin Village has developed more than 800 mu of high-quality protected grapes, involving more than 100 households. Thanks to the adoption of new techniques such as forcing cultivation, rain-shelter cultivation and health-care cultivation, the grape picking period in the park can last from late June all the way to late November.

"Next, we will make use of the local sound ecological environment, rich folk customs and agricultural production and business activities to attract tourists to come for sightseeing, leisure, picking and vacations, satisfying people's desire for leisure and entertainment and a return to nature, taking the path of high-efficiency agricultural development, and, while raising people's incomes, building Xinmin Village into a typical tourist sightseeing orchard base," Dong Zhaofu said.