Teacher Cai helps farmers grow vegetables and get on the road to prosperity

Yue Hongyan, 53 this year, has been engaged in agricultural technology extension work for nearly thirty years, and is currently deputy director of the Suizhong County Rural Economic Development Bureau. Even though he is a leading official, the folks still like to call him Old Yue, or address him as "Technician Yue" or "Teacher Cai" (Teacher Vegetable). Since starting work, Yue Hongyan has dealt with the folks almost every day, and with all kinds of vegetables; countless fields that earned only a few hundred yuan have, under his guidance, been developed into vegetable greenhouses bringing in twenty or thirty thousand yuan; countless farmers, under his guidance, have planted new varieties and applied new techniques, and set out on the road to prosperity.

Diligent in study, assiduous in research

In 1985, after graduating from secondary technical school, Yue Hongyan began working in agricultural technology extension. In the early days of his work, he found that Suizhong County mainly grew field crops such as corn and rice, with backward planting and management models, and farmers' incomes were not high; seeing this situation, he took it to heart and fretted over it. He used every learning opportunity, attending various technical training classes, learning from experts and scholars, constantly enriching his knowledge of crop cultivation and management, and gradually accumulating experience in practice. In 1995, Yue Hongyan guided farmers to develop greenhouse vegetable cultivation; he went from village to village and household to household to conduct training, gave guidance in the fields, and did a good job in services such as trial demonstrations, market analysis, and linking up with purchasing, and in the very first year he let many farmers get a taste of the benefits of greenhouse vegetable production. Ample replenishment of knowledge and day-by-day practical exploration gradually made Yue Hongyan an expert in his field; he helped many farmers solve technical problems, increased crop yields, and raised farmers' economic income.

To better popularize scientific knowledge about vegetables, Yue Hongyan successively wrote three booklets, "High-Yield Cultivation Techniques for Cucumber and Kidney Bean in Solar Greenhouses", "High-Yield Cultivation Techniques for Cucumber in Protected Cultivation", and "Diagnosis and Control of Infectious Diseases of Cucumber", totaling about 100,000 characters; printed and distributed 30 kinds of technical materials, more than 6,000 copies, and participated in the compilation of the Huludao City new-type farmer science and technology training textbook "Practical Agricultural Techniques"; published the greenhouse vegetable off-season cultivation technology series volume "Off-Season Cultivation of Radish, Chinese Cabbage, and Potato", and formulated pollution-free production technical regulations for cucumber, kidney bean, Chinese chives, green pepper, potato, and daikon radish. Combining the production characteristics of Suizhong County, he integrated all technical indicators into farming activities, with content including integrated control of pests and diseases, scientific management of fertilizer and water, and rational use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, with strong practicality and operability, providing an important basis for vegetable growers' pollution-free vegetable production.

Deep into the fields, careful guidance

Yue Hongyan often goes deep into the fields and the front line of production, understanding conditions and guiding production; he does not rest on holidays, and the masses can call on him at any time. He rides a bicycle to townships such as Chengjiao, Tashantun, and Huangdi, and takes public buses to townships such as Kuanbang, Xiping, and Gejia, spending more than 50 days a year in the countryside. Before the 2005 Spring Festival, green peppers in solar greenhouses in Xiwang Village, Tashantun Town, suffered a disease; many people treated it without effect, and finally they thought of him. He diagnosed it as bacterial leaf spot. When the vegetable growers asked him how confident he was, he answered 95 percent confident; he treated it with Subu, effective after one application and cured after two, and a 100 m greenhouse in the end sold for 18,000 yuan. In 2006, Dawangmiao Town developed solar greenhouse vegetables, and he went there more than 30 times in a single growing season. In January 2008, the greenhouse cucumbers of Wang Jingui's family in Neidong Village, Chengjiao Township, suffered a disease; after others treated it many times without effect, they found him by phone, and that afternoon he went to the field to diagnose it, confirming it as physiological iron deficiency caused by improper fertilization. After foliar spraying of chelated iron, it took effect in one week, and basically returned to normal after two weeks. Things like this happen 3 to 5 times every year. In winter, outside the greenhouse it is minus 20°C, inside the greenhouse it is 30°C above zero; entering the greenhouse he is covered in sweat, leaving the greenhouse he shivers, and he is often covered in dirt with mud on his feet. He never says a word about the hardship or the fatigue.

Everywhere Yue Hongyan goes, he leaves his mobile phone number, and his work and home phone numbers, with the vegetable growers; as soon as the vegetable growers dial, he provides timely and accurate technical consultation services for them anytime and anywhere. In 2000, more than 20 vegetable-growing households in Xiwang Village, Tashantun Town, tempted by high income, discussed with him growing aloe. Based on his understanding of the market, he believed that with a lack of aloe processing enterprises, there was no market for leaf sales, and the risk was very high; after his persuasion the vegetable growers gave up the idea and avoided economic loss. Not only vegetable growers from Suizhong consult him with questions, but vegetable growers from Xingcheng also seek his advice; he provides more than 500 person-times of technical consultation services each year. Because of his solid technical skills and enthusiastic service, "If you have a problem, find Old Yue" has become the farmers' first reaction.

Introducing technology, helping the people increase income. Yue Hongyan has established business contacts with many vegetable research institutions, introducing 7 to 10 new varieties and new technologies each year. In 1988, cucumber fusarium wilt seriously harmed protected cucumber production; he introduced and promoted cucumber grafting cultivation technology, solving this difficult problem, and it has now been applied for 20 years, with an annual application area of 11,000 mu, increasing income by more than 20 million yuan. The L402 tomato introduced in 1990 is still in use today; new technologies such as under-film irrigation, EVA film, and thermal insulation quilts are widely applied, and the introduction of new varieties such as garland chrysanthemum, bitter melon, and snake bean has enriched the citizens' vegetable baskets. The whole county newly develops more than 10,000 mu of solar greenhouse vegetable production each year; for each solar greenhouse community, from plot selection, orientation, greenhouse length, spacing size, greenhouse type, and selection of building materials, he must personally carry out planning and design, ensuring that newly built greenhouses have a reasonable structure, good lighting, strong insulation performance, and resistance to wind and snow, creating favorable conditions for abundant vegetable harvests.

Every year, Yue Hongyan organizes and holds more than 30 sessions of various training classes such as Science Popularization Winter, the Sunshine Project, and new-type farmers; he personally teaches at each session, focusing on introducing new varieties, new technologies, new pesticides, and new fertilizers, promoting the construction of optimized solar greenhouses and scientific and reasonable management methods, training more than 30,000 farmer person-times. He has lectured on farmers' kang beds and under the shade of trees; for every new patch of greenhouse vegetables developed, he goes to lecture. He imparts knowledge to farmers, striving to go from the shallow to the deep, plain and easy to understand, so that farmers can understand clearly and apply it usefully. Through training and study, farmers' ideas have changed, from not daring to build greenhouses and not knowing how to build them, to daring to build them and building them well; some people have gradually become local experts and leaders in rural prosperity.