A Visit to the Chu Orange Estate: The Cultivation and Brand Story of Chu Orange
Every year at the end of November, the Chu oranges of the season begin to be harvested, and compared with most oranges on the market, their flavor is even more outstanding. Chu Shijian's Chu Orange Estate is located on the Ailao Mountains. Originally just a planting base, the Chu orange orchard has even become a tourist destination in Xinping that one simply must visit.
In the spring of 2013, the construction of the “Chu Orange Estate” project was officially launched. The newly built Chu Orange Estate is divided into 5 parts: the hotel area, the farmhouse restaurant area, the ecological breeding area, the leisure fishing area, and the orchard area. Among them, the hotel area, farmhouse restaurant area, and leisure fishing area are the focus of construction.
The Chu Orange Estate is divided into two parts. The new building at the top of the mountain can provide business meetings and reception for high-end visitors, and can accommodate up to 80 people at the same time. On the mountainside, a restaurant mainly featuring farmhouse-style dining is built, and every dish is selected from the mountain wilds and ravines of the Ailao Mountains. Relying on the Chu Orange Estate, an ecological tourism destination integrating cultural display, conference reception, tourism training, and leisure sightseeing has been built here.
Chu's Agriculture was founded under the leadership of Mr. Chu Shijian, and is dedicated to fruit cultivation using modern agricultural technology and a standardized management system. It also conducts research on the breeding of high-quality fruit varieties, cultivation techniques, and deep-processing technology and processes. It has the star brands “Chu Orange” and “Yunguan Orange.”
“Chu Orange”
In 2003, the elderly Chu Shijian planted the first batch of rock sugar oranges deep in the Ailao Mountains in Gasa Town and named them Chu Orange. After years of careful cultivation, Chu Orange has won market praise for its thin peel, abundant juice, golden sweet-and-sour ratio, and clear sweetness that melts in the mouth, becoming one of the sweet orange brands most loved by Asians, and in 2017 it achieved an excellent result of nearly 300 million yuan in output value for a single product.
“Yunguan Orange”
In 2015, the Chu Orange team set out to build the Longling production base, covering an area of 10000 mu. A new generation of Chu Orange people rushed to the front line, adopting the standardized management of the Chu Orange Estate plus a management system tailored to local conditions to develop the new brand “Yunguan Orange.” In 2017, a provincial key academician workstation: the academician workstation of Deng Xiuxin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, chief scientist of the modern citrus technology system, and president of Huazhong Agricultural University, was officially established at the Longling base, using scientific planting techniques to help advance the project. By 2019, the base had achieved a output of 6000 tons, with 3000 tons of selected finished products, and a finished product rate of 50%.
Chu's Agriculture, a brand forged with craftsmanship over more than ten years, has been settling and accumulating at every step. Having gone through glory, it still moves forward with the heart of a farmer.
To further improve the fruit quality of Chu oranges, the Chu Orange Estate cut down 37000 fruit trees in 2015, ensuring ventilation and light transmission between the trees, and fruit quality has further improved since 2016.
Judging from various data indicators in 2017, both yield and quality will improve even more, with the average fruit diameter reaching 6.5 cm and the proportion of premium-grade fruit increasing substantially.
Judging from various data indicators in 2017, both yield and quality will improve even more, with the average fruit diameter reaching 6.5 cm and the proportion of premium-grade fruit increasing substantially.
Chu Orange is a shining calling card of Yunnan's plateau characteristic agriculture. From 2002 to now, Chu Orange has been rooted in the fertile soil of Xinping and has remained fresh over time, continuously releasing new momentum for the development of plateau characteristic agriculture.
Under the strong influence of Chu Orange, the public's enthusiasm for developing citrus cultivation has surged to an unprecedented level. The Xinping County Party Committee and County Government seized the opportunity and leveraged this momentum for development, increasing policy support. Citrus cultivation has blossomed everywhere across Xinping, becoming a new highlight of Yunnan's plateau characteristic agriculture in recent years. It is reported that Chu orange citrus cultivation is mainly distributed in the low-heat river valley areas of Huaning County, Xinping County, Yuanjiang County, and Yimen County in the Nanpan River basin and Red River basin. As one of the important planting areas, Xinping County had a citrus planting area of 93791 mu as of July 2017, close to one-half of the city's total planting area of 209000 mu. By the end of the year, the fruiting area is expected to reach 41000 mu, realizing an output value of 396 million yuan. In 2017, the Chu Orange Estate is expected to produce 11000 tons.