Red-fleshed dragon fruit cultivation helps farmers onto the road to prosperity
"Mild in texture and fresh in taste, this is many people's impression of dragon fruit. But for me, it is not only a delicious fruit, but also a golden key that opens the 'door to prosperity,'" said Wei Juhua, chairman of the Anyi County Lvkang Vegetable and Fruit Farmers' Professional Cooperative.
In Luofeng Village, Xinmin Township, Anyi County, a dragon fruit planting base has been established, and this base was built jointly by Wei Juhua and two village groups. Speaking of her entrepreneurial history, Wei Juhua described it as "very rich": from 2003 to 2005, she ran an aluminum alloy business in Yangzhou; from 2006 to 2007, she sold stainless steel materials in Jinan; after returning to Anyi in 2008, she also worked in wardrobe sales... Through constant exploration, it was not until 2013 that Wei Juhua set about founding the Anyi County Lvkang Vegetable and Fruit Farmers' Professional Cooperative.
Wei Juhua told reporters: "Many young and middle-aged laborers in our village choose to go out to work, and the fields at home are transferred to others. At first, I took over all this land and planted rice. With the development of 'farmhouse entertainment' in recent years, many city people come to the countryside to pick fruit. I think this is a good opportunity, so I decided to join forces with two village groups to jointly build a fruit planting and picking base."
Wei Juhua made up her mind to start growing fruit, but what fruit would be good to grow? In 2014, Wei Juhua and other shareholders went out separately to conduct many rounds of investigation, and finally decided to plant red-fleshed dragon fruit in Luofeng Village. Growing dragon fruit in Anyi seemed to many people to be simply "wishful thinking," but Wei Juhua did not think so.
"Red-fleshed dragon fruit has high nutritional value and good economic returns," Wei Juhua said. During the investigation, they found that red-fleshed dragon fruit rarely suffers from pests and diseases during its growth process, almost requiring no pesticides, is simple to plant and saves labor, and generally has a lifespan of more than 15 years. It is a highly efficient fruit that requires one-time investment and provides long-term harvests. "After the dragon fruit matures, it can continue to grow on the branch for a period of time, and after being picked, it can still be stored for several months, so it is very resistant to storage," she introduced. The most suitable temperature for dragon fruit growth is 25-35°C. Below 10°C or above 38°C, dragon fruit will stop growing, and Anyi County, with its pleasant climate, happens to have these climatic conditions.
Everything is difficult at the beginning. Since Wei Juhua had never planted dragon fruit before, she did not know much about its varieties or cultivation methods. In order to gain a deeper understanding of the taste of red-fleshed dragon fruit grown in different environments, Wei Juhua took her cooperative members to Zhejiang, Guangdong, Guangxi, and also to Taiwan, China to "learn from masters." After much consideration and comparison, they decided to introduce dragon fruit seedlings from Zhejiang.
Everything was ready, just waiting for them to settle in. In February 2015, after the dragon fruit base greenhouse with an investment of more than 2 million yuan was completed, the first batch of fruit seedlings was officially planted. "During the planting process, we adopted modern technology for grafting and transformation, and also used the 'greenhouse effect' of the steel-structured greenhouse to increase the accumulated temperature inside, create a climate suitable for dragon fruit cultivation, and create favorable conditions for its growth," Wei Juhua said. In November 2015, the ripening of the first dragon fruit was undoubtedly a great encouragement to Wei Juhua. "That dragon fruit, about ten of us shared and ate it. Although each person only ate a small piece, our hearts were very sweet!"
As the dragon fruit ripened, the cooperative members grew from the original 11 to 54, and the registered capital reached 5 million yuan. "Now our scale is not very large yet, so in the next few years we may focus mainly on developing the picking industry." Regarding the output value of dragon fruit, Wei Juhua confidently calculated an account: "Dragon fruit planted in the first year can bear fruit in the third year, and the yield per mu can reach about 2,000 jin. Now the market wholesale price is 15 yuan per jin, so the output value per mu is 30,000 yuan. Excluding costs such as labor and fertilizer of about 8,000 yuan, the net income per mu can reach 22,000 yuan. Then the total income of 100 mu of red-fleshed dragon fruit would be 2.2 million yuan."
Wei Juhua is also full of longing for the future of the base: "We will integrate dragon fruit planting, ecological sightseeing, and farmhouse entertainment tourism into one, and the base will become an important display window for dragon fruit scientific research and farmhouse rural tourism culture in the whole city and even the whole province."