Raising crayfish in lotus root fields, a lotus root farmer earns 600,000 yuan a month

"Right now is the season for eating crayfish, and the crayfish that 'crawl' out of the lotus root fields earn me 20,000 yuan a day!" On June 1, Chen Xiyu, a lotus root farmer from Xiaojia Village, Guangyanghu Town, Baoying County, was beaming with joy. Over the past half month, more than 300 jin of crayfish have been caught every day from his several hundred mu of lotus root fields and sold to the market.

Having grown lotus roots for more than 20 years, Chen Xiyu now earns returns he never would have dared to imagine before. In Baoying, although lotus root is a traditional specialty industry, it has been constrained by planting techniques and varieties, so profits were merely average, and in years with poor harvests, losses occurred from time to time.

By chance, Chen Xiyu found many crayfish in his own lotus root field. Afraid that the lotus plants would be damaged, he decided to catch all the crayfish and sell them. At that time the price of crayfish was not yet high, but it still brought Chen Xiyu an unexpected income. This made him sense a business opportunity in raising crayfish in lotus root fields. In 2005, he first experimented with raising crayfish alongside lotus roots in his hundred mu of lotus root fields, releasing 20 kg of crayfish broodstock per mu. Without putting in any feed, that year's crayfish catch exceeded 45 kg per mu, and the output value per mu reached more than 1,000 yuan, which delighted him beyond measure.

But things are not always smooth sailing. One year, Chen Xiyu found that the lotus seedlings in several mu of lotus root fields were withering and dying. After investigation, he discovered that April to May each year is the sprouting period for lotus roots, when the plants are tender, while crayfish are then in their flourishing period and would pinch off the lotus plants, ultimately causing the lotus seedlings to die. After that, he changed the timing of crayfish harvesting, which not only put the crayfish on the market at just the right time, but also greatly reduced the loss of lotus roots.

After more than 10 years of exploration, Chen Xiyu has summed up a complete set of mature "crayfish co-culture technology in lotus root fields," and his annual income has more than doubled compared with the past.