Hami melons and other northern fruits and melons successfully trial-planted, northern fruit fragrance drifts from Tianya

A new Hami melon variety "Syngenta" newly bred by the Nanfan Academy of Sciences.

    Not long ago, another northern fruit, the jujube tree, was successfully introduced and planted in Sanya. This added a new variety to the nearly ten kinds of northern fruits introduced to Sanya, and also added a new highlight to Sanya's "northern fruits grown in the south" plan. 

　　A Taiwan-funded enterprise and an academician's "northern fruit" experiment

Sanya's introduction of northern fruits began in the late 1980s. Over the past 20 years, through the continuous efforts of a group of scientists and agricultural enterprises, jujubes, grapes, roses, lilies and a series of other "northern fruits" and "northern flowers" have one after another settled in Sanya, forming one new industrial chain after another.

Cai Keqin, section chief of the Planting and Market Information Section of the Sanya Municipal Agriculture Bureau, has worked in the agricultural sector for nearly 30 years and is an important witness to and participant in the development of modern agriculture in Sanya. He said that Sanya's "northern fruits grown in the south" began with melons.

In 1988, the Taiwan-funded Sanheli Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. successfully trial-planted thin-skinned melons in Sanya. Soon afterward, a group of researchers represented by Academician Wu Mingzhu of the ** Academy of Agricultural Sciences successfully trial-planted Hami melons in Sanya and freely passed this technique on to local villagers.

Nearly ten kinds of "northern fruits" successfully "grown in the south"

Starting with melons, "northern fruits grown in the south" branched out and flourished in Sanya. Recently, a Hainan Daily reporter saw at the jujube tree base of Sanya Haiyuan Industrial Co., Ltd. in Langmang Tianyang, Yacheng Town, that the jujube trees introduced last year by the company in cooperation with Professor Xia Shurang, a national-level agricultural consultant for Sanya, were already laden with fruit.

At the end of last year, Haiyuan Company signed an agreement with Professor Xia Shurang to introduce the "Guitai series" jujube varieties, and at the beginning of this year began planting 33,000 plants in the 100-mu demonstration seedling cultivation base for northern red jujubes grown in the south in Langmang Tianyang. This batch of jujube trees, planted in Sanya for the first time, is expected to be on the market in the middle of this month.

Xia Shurang said that jujube trees planted in Sanya flowering and bearing fruit shows that this high-quality northern fruit has successfully achieved "southern planting," but technical management still needs to be strengthened to breed fresh jujube varieties with high yield, high quality and stress resistance, and to better promote them so that ordinary people can grow fresh jujubes and get rich.

The planting base of the Haiyue Tropical Grape Cooperative in Yacheng Town has also achieved success. Li Dawei, head of the cooperative, told reporters that growing grapes in Sanya has succeeded, breaking the old notion that tropical regions are unsuitable for growing grapes, and moreover, Sanya has the advantage of being off-season.

The reporter learned from the Sanya Municipal Agriculture Bureau that at present nearly ten kinds of northern fruits and northern flowers have been successfully grown in the south in Sanya, including roses, strawberries and lilies. 

    An ambitious industrial plan

Thick-skinned melons originated in the northwest region of our country, while thin-skinned melons are mainly from the northeast region. Grapes, jujubes and others are all temperate crops, but at present all are promoted on a large scale in Sanya, among which Hami melons cover 16,000 mu, with a planting area of 30,000 mu and an annual output value of more than 400 million yuan. As for thin-skinned melons represented by "Qianlixiang" and "Mishijie," the planting area is about 1/3 of that of thick-skinned melons, and the output value is also above 100 million yuan.

The Sanya municipal government has already seen the huge development space for northern fruits. This year's government work report clearly proposed building a 100-mu fresh jujube base and a 50-mu off-season grape demonstration base within this year, and advancing the development of protected agriculture and "northern fruits grown in the south" in Sanya. Sanya is ambitiously turning "northern fruits grown in the south" into an industrial cluster with an output value of several billion yuan.

In fact, several years ago, Sanya officials had already consciously guided the planting of northern fruits. After 2006, Sanya vigorously promoted the cultivation of Hami melons in protected greenhouses, and investment through financial subsidies has reached 150 million yuan, driving about 300 million yuan in private investment.

The government's bold moves have also prompted a qualitative leap in "northern fruits grown in the south." This year's "Sanya Tropical Characteristic Modern Agriculture Development Plan" proposed that by 2020, the area of greenhouse melons and vegetables represented by Hami melons would reach 50,000 mu, with a planting area exceeding 100,000 mu.

Academician Wu Mingzhu said that protected cultivation of Hami melons is absolutely a leap forward and a direction. First, protected agriculture can save land: protected Hami melons can cultivate 1,100—1,300 plants per mu, while ordinary cultivation has only five or six hundred plants. Second, protected agriculture has high yields: the per-mu yield of protected Hami melons is about three times that of ordinary cultivation. At the same time, protected cultivation can advance and delay the growth period, increasing planting time and greatly improving land utilization.

She said this is of great significance for making full use of our country's very scarce tropical land resources.