Returning home to grow "immortal grass": a young man from Anqing wants to be a different kind of farmer after graduation

Without an on-the-ground visit, it is hard to imagine that a university graduate returned home to farm and, after more than three years of struggle, became a locally known "Dendrobium King" - establishing a demonstration base of more than 20 mu of Dendrobium. At the end of December, following a rugged mountain path, the reporter arrived at Nanchong Village, Zhifeng Township, more than half an hour's drive from Susong County seat. The base sits surrounded by mountains, and clusters of Dendrobium, hailed as the "number one immortal grass under heaven," grow here. The 25-year-old He Zhiwei is the owner of this patch of Dendrobium.

He Zhiwei busies himself in a Dendrobium greenhouse

Returning home to farm despite family opposition

The reporter learned that in 2012, after He Zhiwei graduated from Hefei Xinhua College with a degree in pharmaceutical engineering, he decided to use what he had learned and return home to start a business.

"I have loved orchids since childhood and am especially interested in agricultural planting. Compared with other places across the country, the climate conditions of the Dabie Mountains have natural advantages for agricultural development. It just so happened that before graduation I interned at a Dendrobium development company in Lu'an. During more than a year of internship, I had the chance to come into contact with Dendrobium, and my interest in this orchid family herbaceous plant grew stronger and stronger." He Zhiwei said with a smile. "Although after graduation I found a job matching my major with a good salary, I still decided to return home to do agriculture." He believes that doing agriculture requires personally throwing yourself into the fields.

But when he spoke of his idea to return home and grow Dendrobium, his whole family immediately opposed it. He Zhiwei said, "Doing what you like means you won't regret it later."

In July 2012, amid the opposition of all relatives and friends, He Zhiwei returned home with his dream and began growing Dendrobium. He first conducted a survey and study of the current state of Dendrobium cultivation and found that no villagers locally had yet grown it on a large scale, so he decided to boldly give it a try. Bracing himself, he borrowed more than 100,000 yuan in startup funds from relatives and friends and bought Dendrobium seedlings and planting materials such as pine bark.

Waiting for the clouds to part and the moon to appear

In early 2013, He Zhiwei began experimenting on half a mu of his own family's land. When he first started growing Dendrobium, because the greenhouse was not sturdy, it was blown down by strong winds, and after continuous freezing rain, he lost 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. This was no small blow to him, and his family urged him to stop quickly. "Other people leave the mountains and earn several thousand yuan a month, but this family's son still comes back home to farm and mess around." Facing the villagers' cold ridicule, He Zhiwei was once very lost. But he was not defeated by setbacks and bought more Dendrobium to continue experimental planting. "When planting for the first time, it is normal for some problems to come up."

With experience and lessons learned, He Zhiwei improved the greenhouse craftsmanship, figuring it out little by little from greenhouse construction to seedling maintenance. Every day he watched over this land like he was protecting a child, never growing tired of it and enjoying it. Hard work pays off. After a year of exploration, He Zhiwei became familiar with the growth characteristics of Dendrobium and mastered the planting techniques. The trial planting of half a mu of Dendrobium could reach a yield of more than 100 kg per mu.

With trial planting experience, He Zhiwei moved forward even more boldly. In 2013, with the help of the village two committees and his friend Li Xiaofa, he transferred more than 20 mu of wasteland in the village in two batches and built more than 30 Dendrobium greenhouses. Gradually, he also changed from a layman into half an expert. Last year the county introduced a subsidy policy, which came as "timely rain" for him.

Planning for the long term in the harvest season

He Zhiwei took the reporter into one of the greenhouses. Lifting the insulation curtain, rows of green plants came into view. The reporter saw plastic trays neatly placed in the greenhouse, with only small paths left in between for people to pass through. Each plastic tray contained more than 20 Dendrobium plants.

"This is Dendrobium officinale, and this is Huoshan Dendrobium huoshanense." He Zhiwei detailed the characteristics and planting essentials of various types of Dendrobium as if counting his family treasures. Pointing to the "soil" in the flowerpot with a touch of mystery, he said, "This is soilless cultivation. The 'soil' for growing Dendrobium is made of substrates such as wood chips and pine bark. This is imitating the original growing environment of Dendrobium. In others' eyes, Dendrobium is just a grass, but in my eyes, it is as precious as a child."

He Zhiwei said that Dendrobium has strict requirements for temperature and humidity. When it is hot, he spends most of the time in the field observing their growth, measuring temperature and humidity, and sometimes even gets up in the middle of the night to check; in winter he always keeps the greenhouse temperature within the range required by the techniques.

"Dendrobium has been grown for more than three years. Some have grown to 20 or 30 cm long and have reached the mature harvest period. The period from winter of that year to before flowering the following year is the best harvest period for Dendrobium. According to current market prices, after deducting costs, it is expected to earn several hundred thousand yuan." He Zhiwei said lightly.

"Only by playing the quality card and segmenting the market can we cope with low-price competition in the market." Although still a newcomer, He Zhiwei has a clear positioning, so from the start 80 percent of his choice was Huoshan Dendrobium, which is difficult to cultivate but high in nutrients.

"Although Huoshan Dendrobium is only 8 or 9 cm, its yield is low and the price is high." He Zhiwei introduced, "The dried product of Huoshan Dendrobium is 150 yuan per gram, far higher than the market price of ordinary Dendrobium officinale at 20 yuan per gram. The economic benefit is relatively considerable, and the market response is good."

Because he is interested in e-commerce, He Zhiwei currently uses an "online plus offline" model to promote products. He opened online stores on Taobao and Alibaba, and the market gradually expanded from the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area, with customers all over the country. Now seven or eight villagers in the village are also making preliminary preparations for large-scale Dendrobium planting. He Zhiwei voluntarily serves as a technical guide and answers villagers' questions. The fellow villagers have also changed their previous prejudice that "university students still come home to farm" and praise him as a diligent university student with a good head on his shoulders.