Zhang Senming: Growing Luo Han Guo, a fortune fruit springs up in the mountain nook

At noon on October 15, the autumn air was crisp and the sky was cloudless. In the mountain nook of Jiudong Tun, Yindong Village, Chang'an Town, Rong'an County, patches of Luo Han Guo vines spread over the trellises in the nook like a green blanket over the earth, and fist-sized green-skinned Luo Han Guo hung all over the trellises, a scene of abundant harvest. With the help and guidance of Wu Jinliang, a poverty alleviation official (village instructor) from the county's United Front Work Department, villager Zhang Senming was busy picking Luo Han Guo in the field. Half an hour later, he loaded a shoulder-load of picked Luo Han Guo onto a three-wheeled motorcart, grinning from ear to ear.

It turned out that he was a specialized grower who had just planted Luo Han Guo this spring.

According to Zhang Senming, Luo Han Guo is highly sought after for its good effects such as relieving coughs and moistening the lungs and lowering blood pressure, and is hailed as the "Oriental divine fruit."

Its place of origin is Guilin, Guangxi, and its optimal growing altitude is 400-500 m. Yet he dared to be the first to "eat the crab." In February this year, the couple took the opportunity of visiting relatives and friends during the Spring Festival to go to rural areas of Shoucheng Town, Yongfu County, to learn Luo Han Guo cultivation techniques from relatives and friends, and also bought instructional CDs and materials. After returning home, they invested more than 20,000 yuan in the mountain nook of Jiudong Tun in the village, hired migrant workers to level the land and make beds, and successively bought more than 1,000 high-quality tissue-cultured Luo Han Guo seedlings and planted 10 mu of Luo Han Guo. Then the couple began working from dawn to dusk.

Hard work pays off. After half a year of effort, they finally welcomed the joy of harvest. "The growth is extremely encouraging, and next year we will expand the scale," Zhang Senming said. The Luo Han Guo harvest is in sight, with a yield of about 11,000 per mu. They began picking on September 25 this year, and have picked more than 30,000 so far. The picking period can last until the end of November, and a conservative estimate puts total output at nearly 90,000. Based on this year's fresh fruit market prices of 0.75 yuan each for large fruit, 0.50 yuan each for medium fruit, and 0.35 yuan each for small fruit, this year's gross income is about 38,200 yuan. Having tasted the benefits, he plans to start deep processing next year, encourage villagers to expand planting by more than 50 mu, and use a "company + base + farmer households" approach to drive villagers to grow Luo Han Guo and escape poverty and become prosperous.