Late-autumn yellow pears from Labagoumen in Huairou, Beijing, enjoy a bumper harvest

    It is once again the season when melons and pears fill the air with fragrance. Walking into the brigade office of Huying Village in Labagoumen Township, Huairou District, one is immediately caught up in the joy and bustle of the fruit growers' harvest. In 2009, after enduring the test of a late spring cold snap, the late-autumn yellow pears of Labagoumen Township enjoyed a bumper harvest, with every fruit plump and full, and the output reaching more than 50,000 jin, setting the highest record in years.

In recent years, Labagoumen Township has actively guided and supported farmers in developing large-scale planting and specialty planting, boosting farmers' incomes. At the end of 2003, the township introduced "late-autumn yellow pears" from Langfang, Hebei, and trial planting in Huying of the township succeeded. In 2009, the late-autumn yellow pears planted by Labagoumen farmers reached their full fruiting period, with output doubling compared with the previous year.

A single tree can grow fruits weighing more than one jin, with the heaviest reaching 2 jin 6 liang. The farmers were overjoyed to see such large pears they had cultivated with their own hands. A visit to the orchard brought even more pleasant surprises: the pear trees of villager Meng Xiangfu not only all bore fruit, but each tree also grew more than 10 pears, and the most productive tree bore more than 200, with some branches bent down by the weight of the fruit. It is understood that each of these fruit trees yields more than 10 jin, and calculated at 2 yuan per jin, the entire village's pear output income can reach more than 100,000 yuan. With the help of the late-autumn yellow pear joint-stock cooperative, the fruit growers can sell out all their late-autumn yellow pears without leaving home, and the farmers' wallets swell just like the golden pears. (Contributing unit: Huairou District Statistics Bureau)