Young man returns home to start a business growing premium strawberries, hoping to help more fellow villagers get rich

Walking into the greenhouse of Jumei Strawberry Picking Manor in Nanshebiya Village, Jinhe Town, Saihan District, rows of seedlings are lush and green, growing vigorously, and each strawberry is large and bright red, delicate and tempting. The ones tending these strawberries are two young people born in the 1980s, one is Pan Yulong, a college graduate who returned home to start a business, and the other is his good friend Wang Weijiu.

Pan Yulong is a native of Nanshebiya Village. After graduating from Inner Mongolia Economic and Trade College in 2012 with a major in civil engineering and construction, he worked for 3 years. By chance, he met his good friend Wang Weijiu, who was born into a strawberry-growing family in Dalian. The two hit it off with shared interests and decided to work together to build a career.

Although his family objected, Pan Yulong still decided to start his own business under pressure. In September last year, they contracted 5 greenhouses covering a total of 12 mu of land, all planted with the queen of strawberries - Hongyan. Pan Yulong said that the biggest feature of Hongyan is its good quality, and it has very high technical requirements, while technology is Wang Weijiu's strong suit. His family has a 30-year history of growing strawberries and has rich experience.

So they bought seedlings back from Dalian and cared for them carefully regardless of cost. Last winter, our city experienced a rare haze weather in history. Because of insufficient light, the strawberry seedlings became diseased, which required timely supplemental lighting. He installed 30 275-watt bulbs in each greenhouse, providing supplemental light for 4 hours every day. This electricity expense alone cost more than 2,000 yuan extra. Because of snowfall in early winter and cold weather, he used a boiler burning coal to raise the temperature, which also cost 15,000 yuan. Later, he also encountered problems such as the head of the rolling shutter machine suddenly freezing and breaking, and they resolved these difficulties one by one. They strengthened management and promptly ventilated the strawberries, and the strawberry plants grew lush and vigorous. Because they do not use chemical fertilizers and use all farmyard manure, do not apply swelling agents, and scientifically thin the fruit, their strawberries grow naturally. The fruits are large, bright red, beautiful in appearance and good in taste, and are very popular with customers. When peers growing strawberries in Nanshebiya Village came to them for advice and to learn after encountering problems, Wang Weijiu would impart planting techniques to them without reservation. Those who also learned and sought advice from Wang Weijiu included some vegetable special commissioners from Hohhot, teachers and students from Agricultural University, and growers from Ordos.

Pan Yulong's strawberries began to mature one after another after this year's New Year's Day. Now, every weekend, customers from around our city make appointments to come to his Jumei Picking Garden to pick strawberries. Many customers specifically found his manor after word-of-mouth recommendations. Pan Yulong's current promotion mainly relies on WeChat dissemination, and perhaps many citizens still do not know about his strawberries. Pan Yulong said that he will make strawberry growing his career, and he will grow the best products so that more customers can taste and enjoy them. His greatest wish is to help more people, especially the elders and fellow villagers in his hometown, get rich, and recommend premium strawberries to thousands of households.