Planting seedlings on over a thousand mu of mountain land, digging canals to channel water, a clever path to wealth

Original title: "Agriculture is an industry full of hope"

Xu Peiying and staff inspecting the growth of seedlings. File photo

Xu Peiying:

A post-85 new farmer, she contracted 1140 mu of mountain land to grow seedlings and founded Huzhou Jinmaisui Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative, growing specialty seedlings featuring colored varieties.

Sannong Express comprehensive report: Short hair cropped to the ears, smiling before she speaks, she looks young, but that crisp, decisive energy also makes her seem very mature. This is the first impression Xu Peiying gives.

Xu Peiying is a post-85 new farmer visited by the 30th class of department-level cadre training of the Party School of the Ministry of Agriculture during a survey in Miaoxi Town, Wuxing District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Four years ago, she began contracting 1140 mu of mountain land to grow seedlings, and successively founded Huzhou Sangnong Ecological Agriculture Co., Ltd. and Huzhou Jinmaisui Fruit and Vegetable Cooperative. Now, it has already become a specialty seedling base with tens of thousands of seedlings, featuring colored varieties. This young woman, not yet 30, is already advancing vigorously on the road of rural entrepreneurship.

However, this road has not been smooth. In 2012, Xu Peiying was only 24 years old. Carrying 2 million yuan, she went to Miaoxi Town, transferred 1140 mu of land, purchased 300,000 red-heart pomelo seedlings, and prepared to go all out. But reality was cruel: in the first winter, all the saplings died. "Actually, I had done preliminary research, but I still had no experience. The temperature in the mountains of Miaoxi Town is several degrees lower than in the city, and all the red-heart pomelos froze to death." Xu Peiying told reporters: "That 2 million yuan was the family's demolition compensation, and it was all lost at once."

Her partners at the time all left, but Xu Peiying could not leave. After all, the 1140 mu of land had a 30-year contract signed with farmers. She borrowed another 600,000 yuan and started with relatively cheap dawn redwood seedlings, planting 1 million dawn redwoods. It was also from this time that she truly experienced the power of science and technology. It happened that Zhejiang A&F University had opened a modern agriculture leading talent class, and she began to study and improve herself.

The results of her study were soon tested. In 2013, she trial-planted 20 mu of trident maple for a company. "But that year happened to have a severe drought. The reservoir bottomed out. People could not even get water to drink, let alone water the trees." Planting for someone else in the first year was a matter of reputation. Xu Peiying was so anxious she could not eat, and whenever she had time she pondered in the field.

"Before planting the seedlings, I had prepared this land and dug many ditches. At the time, it was to resist waterlogging." There happened to be a small puddle in the field. Since watering was impossible, she pumped the water out into the ditches and let the trees take root and absorb water themselves.

In this way, the 20 mu of saplings unexpectedly survived. But what surprised her even more was that when spring came the next year, this batch of seedlings grew rapidly. Other people's seedlings grew to more than 1 m in a year, while hers grew to 2.4 m.

What was going on? She started thinking hard again. Careful study found that it was the method of releasing water into the ditches that had worked, because plants have the characteristic of growing toward water. In a dry environment, wherever there is water, the plant roots will grow in that direction. She delivered water into these ditches more than 80 cm deep. After the water seeped into the ground, the tree roots beside the ditches grew downward along with the seeping water. Therefore, many saplings' roots extended more than 2 m deep into the ground. With a good foundation laid, once the growing season arrived, the saplings grew rapidly. "Science and technology create value. How do you use the least resources to create the greatest value? You must summarize and apply these technologies," Xu Peiying said.

Relying only on growing seedlings for others still earned hard money, and Xu Peiying was not satisfied. She also longed to possess her own "core weapon." As her base grew larger and larger, more and more enterprises came to grow seedlings, and some research institutes and enterprises also used this place as an internship and research base, coming to select seedlings and breed.

"I saw some teachers bringing doctoral students over to select seedlings. They hung labels on the selected trees and focused on digging them out the next year. I also followed them and learned how to select, and hung labels myself," Xu Peiying said. The next year, the labeled trees were indeed red, orange, and purple, with colors more brilliant and purer than other trees. "One tree was golden yellow all over. When I took it to a trade fair, I asked for 200 and it sold immediately. The price increased a hundredfold." Later, she stopped selling them and used these mutated tree species to establish her own gene bank. "It already has more than 2000 excellent seedlings with brilliant colors, including yellow, red, purple, and orange, among which orange is the most beautiful." She uses these excellent seedlings to breed varieties herself.

During the survey by the 30th class of department-level cadre training of the Party School of the Ministry of Agriculture, the trainees lamented that the aging problem among agricultural practitioners is very serious. Among local farming personnel, those in their 60s count as young. The post-85 new farmer Xu Peiying understands technology, knows how to operate, and has a spirit of daring to venture and work hard, like a fresh breeze bringing vigorous vitality to agriculture. "Many young people are unwilling to do agriculture. In fact, I think agriculture is the most promising industry," Xu Peiying said. (Reporter Jiang Na)

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