Fruits pull in the eye each with their own tricks, and clever moves abound to draw attention

Editor's note: With the adjustment of the planting industry structure, many farmer friends have set their sights on cash crops such as vegetables and fruits. What exactly should be planted to make money? This requires working "backward" from the market, aiming at the market before acting, so that the produce grown does not end up unsold.

So, among the wide variety of fruits on the market, what conditions must a fruit meet to be "eye-catching" enough? Please see——

Pomelos sold by the piece, over one hundred each

The price is really high

The seedless honey pomelo of Chengmai County, Hainan Province, is not sold by weight but only by the piece, priced at 288 yuan for two and 388 yuan for two, and even the cheapest substandard fruit costs more than 60 yuan each.

What is the reason? This variety was developed by repeated cross-grafting and improvement of the Malaysian crystal honey pomelo with local bitter pomelo and other varieties from Chengmai County.

One pomelo costs more than 100 yuan. The seedless honey pomelo of Chengmai County, Hainan Province, is not sold by weight but only by the piece; according to fruit grade, the prices are 288 yuan for two and 388 yuan for two, and even the cheapest substandard fruit costs more than 60 yuan each.

Eating pomelo in early autumn is a choice many people make. The pomelo is a treasure from peel to flesh, and its benefits are recorded in the Compendium of Materia Medica: as food, it removes foul qi from the stomach and intestines, relieves alcohol toxicity, treats bad breath in drinkers, poor appetite and tastelessness in the mouth, and resolves phlegm and relieves cough. Moreover, in China as well as in Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, there is a custom of making pomelo into tea drinks.

In addition to coming to market one month earlier than pomelos from the mainland, Chengmai seedless honey pomelo is also recognized by the market for its green peel and white flesh, thin and easy-to-peel skin, crisp and tender seedless flesh, light fragrance and abundant juice, and moderate sweetness and acidity. Chengmai fruit grower Geng Dalin, who has grown seedless honey pomelo for 14 years, believes: "If you want a good price, the variety is the key."

Geng Dalin was the earliest person in Chengmai County to grow seedless honey pomelo. After losing money growing rice in Guangdong in 2002, the unyielding Geng decided to try his luck in Hainan. After investigating the market, Geng Dalin felt that because his own funds were limited, large-scale crops such as grain and vegetables were certainly out of the question, and that for long-term development he still had to focus on tropical specialty premium fruits.

"Pomelos keep well, are easy to transport, have a long market period and strong risk controllability, unlike tropical fruits such as mango, lychee and papaya, which have such strong requirements for market timing." In the end, Geng Dalin chose pomelo, which few people in Hainan were growing at the time. Although many people warned him then that pomelo had long been grown in the mainland and had already formed brands, so its tropical advantage was not as prominent as that of other fruits, the stubborn Geng Dalin felt that while having something others do not have is important, sooner or later others will follow suit, and to remain undefeated, having the best among what others have is what matters most.

Although China is rich in pomelo variety resources, not many varieties are suitable for Hainan's tropical and subtropical climate. In order to compete differently from mainland pomelos, after extensive investigation, Geng Dalin chose the Malaysian crystal honey pomelo, which belongs to the same tropical climate as Hainan. Seedlings were planted in 2002, and the variety was formally finalized in 2012, achieving large-scale market launch. Geng Dalin spent 10 years repeatedly cross-grafting and improving the Malaysian crystal honey pomelo with local Chengmai bitter pomelo and other varieties until the characteristics of the seedless honey pomelo variety were finally stable, and he applied to register the trademark "Shankou Qingyou."

At Geng Dalin's seedless honey pomelo planting base, the reporter saw several drink bottles filled with liquid hanging on each tree, with small holes drilled in the upper part of the bottles. Looking closer, the bottles were full of moths. Because no pesticides are used, and in order to ensure the quality and safety of the pomelos, Geng Dalin explored a series of green control measures such as mowing and returning grass to the field, raising chickens under the trees, applying more organic fertilizer, bagging with cloth bags to prevent insects, and using high-pressure water guns to wash and kill pests.

"Delicious and healthy, so of course it sells well." Geng Dalin calculated the accounts for the reporter: in order to increase the tree's light exposure, dense planting is not recommended for honey pomelo; at 30 trees per mu, 30 standard fruits per tree, and each fruit selling for 100 yuan, three years after planting the seedlings the output value per mu of honey pomelo can reach 90,000 yuan, and the cost can be recovered and profit achieved in the very year the fruit is borne.

In recent years, the Chengmai County government has accelerated the development of tropical specialty high-efficiency agriculture. Since 2013, it has listed seedless honey pomelo as a pillar industry of the county and continuously increased financial support for growing seedless honey pomelo. The government gives key support in land transfer and funding assistance, with 1,000 yuan per mu for new plantings, paid in full over 3 years. At present, the county's planting area has reached more than 4,000 mu.

In 2015, the Hainan Provincial Government issued the Research Report on Making Tropical Specialty High-Efficiency Agriculture Bigger and Stronger, clearly proposing to develop 100,000 mu of honey pomelo across the province during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period. To promote the seedless honey pomelo industry along the path of standardization, industrialization and branding with integrated production, learning and research, Chengmai County and the College of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture of Hainan University established the Chengmai Honey Pomelo Research Institute that year, to strengthen the breeding of superior varieties and formulate honey pomelo planting standards, providing scientific and technological support for making the honey pomelo industry bigger and stronger.

An Shuoyu, head of the Chengmai Honey Pomelo Research Institute, introduced that the institute has now established a tropical honey pomelo germplasm resource nursery and introduced tropical honey pomelo germplasm resources from Malaysia, Thailand and other countries, and through studying their growth habits, it continuously selects and breeds honey pomelo varieties more suitable for Hainan's climate.

"Seedling propagation is the first and most critical step in preventing and controlling huanglongbing and ensuring the healthy development of the seedless honey pomelo industry." An Shuoyu said that with government support, the institute specially established a virus-free nursery to supply seedlings uniformly to growers throughout the county, safeguarding product quality at the source and ensuring the healthy development of the industry. At the same time, it has completed the formulation of the provincial-level planting and management standard for seedless honey pomelo as well as two county-level local standards for fresh fruit grading and grafted seedling cultivation, striving to build and improve a standards management system for the entire seedless honey pomelo industry chain.

An Shuoyu acknowledged that because the quality and brand of Chengmai seedless honey pomelo have won market recognition, and due to limited output, supply falls short of demand; at present, point-to-point direct sales are still the main method, supplemented by online platform sales such as Taobao and WeChat, mainly targeting high-end consumer groups in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. As the planting area and output gradually increase, there is a need to improve and establish a price system and market management system for seedless honey pomelo as soon as possible.