Tongzhou District orchard hires white geese for weeding and pest control
In the orchard, they don't want to spray chemicals, but hoeing weeds and catching insects are both difficult tasks. Yesterday (the 24th), a reporter saw at Lixiang Manor in Banjiehe Village, Yongledian Town, Tongzhou District, that this orchard has brought in a flock of white geese specifically to deal with weeds and pests under the trees.
Lixiang Manor is an orchard managed by a group of young new farmers, covering 1200 mu, all planted with pear trees. Walking into the orchard, you will find that the pear trees here are planted much more densely than in traditional orchards, with less than 1 m between fruit trees. Zhao Xin, the person in charge of the park, introduced that this place was built according to an efficient modern orchard model. The pear trees use dwarfing and close-planting technology, with more than 300 trees planted per mu, while ordinary orchards plant only about forty or fifty per mu. With this cultivation model, the annual yield per mu can reach 7500 kg, two to three times that of traditional orchards.
However, in dwarfed and densely planted orchards, the space under the trees is narrower, and the difficulty of manual weeding and insect catching also increases. And many of these young people have just become new fathers and mothers, and they attach great importance to the quality and safety of the fruit. Last year, the park obtained EU organic certification. Their shared philosophy is to grow organic high-quality pears so that children can eat them safely and with peace of mind. No one wants to use highly toxic chemical agents to eliminate insects and weeds.
They learned that under the treesraising geesecan produce a biological control effect, so in May this year, 200 geese were newly added to the orchard, patrolling and standing guard under the trees every day, and when they see pests and weeds they dutifully eliminate them completely. For example, the previously most troublesome green foxtail, a single plant has several hundred seeds and spreads especially quickly. This year, with the white geese, the seeds were eaten clean, and this weed is basically no longer seen in the orchard. Recently, they also newly "hired" more than 100 chickens to assist the geese in completing the tasks of weeding and catching insects.
Zhao Xin said these geese are like natural "weeders," not picky eaters, and they eat any kind of weed. They also trained and conditioned a lead "goose commander," who works from dawn to dusk, on duty under the fruit trees. In the past, every year just for weeding they had to hire more than 10 temporary workers, which was both costly and laborious. Now with their help, the workers have all been "liberated," and no longer need to bend over and crawl into the orchard to work in the scorching heat.
Li Songtao, a senior engineer from the Industry Development Division of the Municipal Forestry and Greening Bureau, introduced that nowadays the "orchardraising geese" three-dimensional planting and breeding model is increasingly favored by fruit growers. "Inviting geese to eat grass" instead of hiring people to weed not only costs less money, but the weeds in the orchard are gone, and goose manure contains elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium needed for the growth of fruit trees, which can improve the soil fertility in the orchard and reduce fertilizer investment. The soil becomes fertile and the trees become strong. In addition, after a few months, the raised geese are ready for market, adding another new income, truly achieving multiple benefits at once.