The Pomegranate King of Nanyang, Henan: A Guide to Growing Pomegranates for Wealth

Hui Shuangqi is a farmer from Yangou Village, Liaohepo Town, Wolong District, Nanyang City, Henan Province. He improved the local pomegranate variety. Using the original pomegranate trees as rootstock, he grafted on branches of the Tunisian soft-seed pomegranate. The new pomegranate has high sugar content, is cold-resistant and drought-tolerant, bears fruit early, and tastes good. It sells well year after year in major cities such as Beijing, Wuhan and Shenzhen.

The sloping hillside land in his hometown, which used to bring in an average annual income of two to three thousand yuan per mu, was mostly left abandoned. Now, in Old Hui's hands, the average annual income per mu has climbed rapidly, as if by magic, and has broken the ten-thousand-yuan mark. More than 60 fellow villagers who had gone out to work have returned home one after another to join the pomegranate cooperative founded by Old Hui, and they now live happy lives with stable incomes and secure livelihoods.