Why is honey pomelo so sweet? The academician's formula is truly valuable
Original title: The academician's "formula" behind the honey pomelo industry
Academician Deng Xiuxin in a pomelo orchard (file photo)
Winter is the season for eating pomelos. Recently, reporters learned in Pinghe County, Fujian, that this place is now the base with the largest pomelo planting area and the highest output in China, and enjoys the reputation of "World Pomelo Hometown" and "China's Pomelo Capital."
"Few people realize that behind our high-yield pomelos are actually the hard work and sweat of Academician Deng Xiuxin and his team. The seemingly small pomelo conceals the great wisdom of scientists." In an interview with our newspaper reporter, Lai Wuping, head of the Publicity Department of Pinghe County, said this.
New problems in an old pomelo hometown
Guanxi honey pomelo has a cultivation history of more than 500 years, and during the Qianlong period it was once listed as a tribute to the imperial court. Since the 1990s, the local honey pomelo market has continued to develop and grow.
"In 2014, the county's honey pomelo planting area reached 650,000 mu, with an annual output of 1.15 million tons and an output value of nearly 5 billion yuan." Shen Shunlai, head of the county's Organization Department, told our newspaper reporter that in the current pomelo market, Pinghe County occupies the largest market share, and its export volume also ranks first nationwide.
However, while the honey pomelo industry was developing vigorously, local farmers also encountered many new problems in recent years.
Lai Wuping introduced that due to the long-term application of a single fertilizer, problems such as nutritional imbalance in pomelo trees and soil acidification occurred, and fruit quality declined somewhat. At the same time, the contradiction between the traditional "honey pomelo + fine pruning" cultivation model and today's labor shortage has become increasingly prominent. In addition, the pomelo varieties were too single, and the harvesting and market time was too concentrated, so they could not fetch a good price.
"Therefore, how to break the development bottleneck of the Guanxi honey pomelo industry has become a real problem facing our county." Lai Wuping said.
The "small" support of a "big" president
How can the sustainable development of the honey pomelo industry be achieved? High-end intellectual support is the breakthrough.
The Fujian Provincial Association for Science and Technology and grassroots science and technology association organizations keenly recognized this problem. In 2012, through the opportunity of an academic conference, they invited Deng Xiuxin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Huazhong Agricultural University, to visit the local area for guidance.
Deng Xiuxin is the chief scientist of China's citrus industry system and has many years of research experience in citrus germplasm resource exploration and fruit quality regulation. Seeing the hundreds of thousands of mu of honey pomelos locally, Deng Xiuxin repeatedly said he "had not expected it." After exchanges, he established an academician workstation at the Pinghe County Agriculture Bureau to carry out science and technology assistance work.
Three years have passed. What has the academician team brought to the local honey pomelo industry?
"To speak truthfully, the help has been very great." Shen Shunlai said that in recent years, experts at the workstation carried out comprehensive testing of nutrient elements in Guanxi honey pomelo orchards, collected more than 300 samples for laboratory analysis, and successfully developed magnesium deficiency correction technology. At present, the application area has reached 35,000 mu, and each mu can increase the rate of high-quality fruit by 5%, increasing economic income by 220 yuan; 35,000 mu can directly increase industrial benefits by 7.7 million yuan.
In response to the problem of single-fertilizer application, the series of special formula fertilizers for flower preservation, fruit preservation, fruit setting, and fruit strengthening of "Aolilong" Guanxi honey pomelo, as well as organic-inorganic mixed slow-release fertilizers developed by Deng Xiuxin's team, were included in the subsidy project of "county builds ten thousand mu, town builds one thousand mu, village builds one hundred mu," increasing the income of fruit farmers countywide by 240 million yuan.
At the same time, Professor Peng Shu'ang, an expert at the workstation, devoted himself to research on the "head-dropping pruning method." This method can save labor input, increase pruning efficiency by 3 to 4 times, and save 400 yuan per mu in pruning labor input. The modern orchard machinery and equipment developed by the experts can save more than 15% of labor input and are especially welcomed by growers.
High technology gives rise to new varieties
"The academician's help has given our county's honey pomelo industry wings to soar." Shen Shunlai said.
Pests and diseases have always been the greatest threat to the honey pomelo planting industry, especially in this kind of contiguous mountainous planting area. Once pests and diseases break out, they can easily affect the entire pomelo grove. In response to this problem, Deng Xiuxin's team established 500 mu of demonstration orchards for the prevention and control of black spot disease, yellow spot disease, and huanglongbing in Xiaoxi Town and Wenfeng Town, conducting in-depth research on pest and disease control technology.
At the same time, through testing and laboratory analysis of the pathogen of honey pomelo black spot disease, the experts concluded that this pathogen does not belong to the same category as the quarantine objects in fruits imported by the European Union. Based on the conclusion, the European Union excluded detection of honey pomelo black spot disease, which has positive significance for the smooth export of Pinghe honey pomelos.
In terms of new variety research and development, Deng Xiuxin's team also gave strong support to local growers. Traditional pomelo flesh is white, but its price is relatively low. In recent years, Guanxi has successively independently bred new varieties such as red-fleshed honey pomelo and yellow honey pomelo. On this basis, Deng Xiuxin's team helped breed new varieties with higher market prices, such as Sanhong honey pomelo and purple honey pomelo. Some varieties can also achieve early maturity and early market release, with better taste, greatly benefiting growers.
"According to preliminary statistics, after the academician workstation entered Pinghe, it increased fruit farmers' income by 240 million yuan, and the per capita annual income of fruit farmers can increase by 2,800 yuan compared with before." Lai Wuping said that the local area is also actively creating convenience for the academician's work. It not only allocated 70 mu of experimental base, but also built a 10 mu pomelo variety precision exposition garden in Wuzhai Township for scientific research and development and new technology trials before, during, and after honey pomelo production. "In the future, as the academician's scientific research continues to deepen, it will bring more opportunities and challenges to the Pinghe honey pomelo industry." He said. (Our newspaper reporter Peng Kefeng)