Staggered melon planting exploits the time gap to sell out early
Recently, under bright sunshine, in Jianghe Village, Fuxing Town, Zhongxian County, watermelon fields stretch one after another, looking beautifully lush and green.
Right now is the peak season for local watermelons from Zhongxian County to hit the market. This writer picked a field with flourishing melon vines, and upon parting the vines was stunned——no watermelons. After searching carefully, this watermelon field actually had only 3 melons.
Could it be that the earlier heavy rains affected this place, reducing the yield of this melon field? Or was the planting technique not proficient enough, leading to a poor harvest?
“You came too late. Our village's watermelons are almost all sold out.” said Wang Zonghua, the owner of the watermelon field, proudly. “If you had come half a month earlier, big watermelons were ‘lying’ all over the ground, very beautiful to see.”
Speaking of why they sell so well, Wang Zonghua said there are mainly three reasons: first, working together as a group; second, cleverly exploiting the time gap; third, excellent quality.
Large-scale development brings quick income growth
Wang Zonghua said that Jianghe Village used to be a poverty-stricken village, where villagers mainly grew corn or wheat. Everyone's connection with melons began 15 years ago, when villager Wang Zongliang successfully grew watermelons, “the bigger ones at 2 yuan/jin, the smaller ones at 1.5 yuan/jin, which worked out to be quite a good deal.”
The next year, Wang Zonghua trial-planted 100 watermelon plants, producing over 1,000 jin of watermelons, which sold for over 1,000 yuan.
While feeling the joy of a bumper harvest, he also figured out some problems. At that time, Jianghe Village had only one dirt-and-stone road leading to Fuxing town center, and they had to carry watermelons on their shoulders and backs to sell them in the town center or county seat. “As long as we carried them to the town center, no matter how many watermelons, they would sell out quickly.” he said, but labor costs were high and transport costs were large. “If only someone would come to buy at our door.” Wang Zonghua took the initiative to find fruit wholesalers, but as soon as they heard that only a few households were growing watermelons, they directly turned him down.
After returning to the village, Wang Zonghua found the village officials and asked them to mobilize the villagers to grow watermelons. In 2010, more than 30 households gradually began growing melons. Afterwards, the road from Fuxing town center to Jianghe Village was hardened and upgraded. “Now, without us having to transport them out, traders come to our door to buy.” Wang Zonghua said with a smile, several bosses from Shizhu buy five or six tons of watermelons every time.
Today, Jianghe Village has planted nearly 180 mu of watermelons, and many villagers have increased their income because of this, including quite a few registered poor households.
Exploiting the time gap to seize the upper hand
Seeing that this writer was a bit disappointed at having “missed” the watermelons, Wang Zonghua thought for a moment and said: “This year Wang Zongming planted a little later, so there should still be watermelons not yet sold. Come on, let's go take a look.”
Sure enough, quite a few watermelons were still “lying” in Wang Zongming's melon field. This writer casually picked one, and upon weighing it, it actually weighed 19.5 jin.
“Our watermelons are big, juicy, and absolutely sweet. If you don't believe it, try one.” Wang Zongming said, this year his watermelons have already sold for over 7,000 yuan. “Every year when we sow watermelon seeds in Jianghe Village, we do it about 15 days earlier than other places, so the ripening time is also earlier.” Therefore, when local melons in Zhongxian County have not yet ripened, these here have already ripened ahead of time, seizing the market opportunity.
"Staggered" planting makes sweet melons
It is learned that the wholesale price of watermelons in Jianghe Village is 1 to 1.5 yuan per jin, and the general retail price sold in the county seat is also only 1 yuan/jin. Besides the above two reasons, Wang Zonghua said it is also related to their self-created “staggered” planting method.
The so-called “staggered” planting method means that in a watermelon field, the first year the rows are opened horizontally, and the second year the rows are opened vertically; when transplanting watermelon seedlings in the second year, they must be offset from where the watermelon seedlings were transplanted in the first year. In addition, each plot of land cannot grow watermelons for more than two years; land that has reached two years must either “rest” or grow other crops, and only after 3 years can watermelons be grown again.
At the same time, the villagers of Jianghe also have a little trick for increasing sweetness, which is to mix fermented cow dung with rapeseed cake and apply it as the base fertilizer for watermelons.
Text by correspondent Yang Qin