Watermelons grown with traditional methods fetch a high price

“Our melons are fertilized entirely with livestock and poultry manure and oil residue. The watermelons ripen naturally, are green and pollution-free, and have a particularly pure flavor.” Recently, in a melon field beside the Ruliu Highway near Fengtun Village, Bandian Township, Runan County, Henan Province, veteran melon grower Zhang Shouqing said this while breaking open a watermelon for people to taste.

Zhang Shouqing, now 71 years old, was already a well-known skilled melon grower back in the days of the “large collective.” After the household contract responsibility system was introduced, because he “had a skill in hand,” he was hired by large-scale melon growers from other places as a melon grower to manage melon fields, and successively served as a watermelon “technical consultant” in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, Shandong and other places.

In recent years, as living standards have risen, people have paid more and more attention to food safety, and agricultural products grown with traditional methods have become increasingly favored. Many villagers in the village had eaten the veteran melon grower's watermelons in the past and still remembered that melon flavor vividly, so they repeatedly urged the veteran melon grower to “return to his old trade” and promised to provide him with labor unconditionally during the watermelon growing process. The veteran melon grower readily agreed, but at first he still did not dare to “take big strides.” Last year he first planted one mu to “test the waters,” but unexpectedly, after the watermelons ripened, they were all picked clean by the villagers before they even left the melon field. This year he boldly planted 6 mu, and they have now begun to ripen and go on the market. The watermelons sell at the field edge for 0.6 yuan per jin, two jiao per jin higher than other watermelons, and are still in short supply.

“‘For crops to bloom, good fertilizer rules the roost.’ My secret to growing watermelons lies in applying good fertilizer. The planting density of watermelons should not exceed 400 plants per mu. I strictly follow traditional methods to press the vines and prune the branches, keeping only one melon per plant to help concentrate nutrients, so the watermelons grow large and taste good. The watermelons undergo high-temperature ‘training’ and ripen naturally; only this way is the quality of the watermelons guaranteed.” Seeing his watermelons being eagerly snapped up, the veteran melon grower unreservedly shared his secrets with the buyers, hoping that more people can master traditional growing techniques, expand the area of traditional watermelon cultivation, and build up the Bandian traditional watermelon brand.

Feng Hongwei, our reporter Zhang Peiqi