Professor Nanlin University let "Yang" berries and fruits make their home in China

"According to the current meteorological forecast, this year is likely to be a cold winter, and it is necessary to take wintering measures for these 'babies' as early as possible." A few days ago, Professor Li Weilin of Nanjing Forestry University and his team are busy in the blueberry blackberry germplasm resource garden. The "baby" he calls it is the blueberry and blackberry that are thriving in the base.

Don't look at them now, but these small berries are real "imported products". From the initial introduction of foreign species, while studying and cautiously promoting, to now a total annual output of more than 500,000 tons of one of the world's major producers, in order to make the "foreign" berries rooted in the land of China, behind the Li Weilin team for more than 30 years of painstaking efforts.

Blueberries and blackberries are berry tree species belonging to the genus Bilberry in the rhododendron family and the genus Hanging hook in the rosaceae family, which enjoy the reputation of "fruit of life" because of its unique flavor and high nutritional health value, and have long occupied a certain market in Europe and the United States.

Since the 1980s, a research team from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Jiangsu Province has introduced excellent blueberry and blackberry varieties from abroad. "At that time, our research was just starting out, and the first problem we faced was to let the people understand and accept them, and find a suitable 'home' for the 'foreign fruits'." Li Weilin introduced that blueberries like acid, the soil conditions are higher, through field research, the research group chose to take the lead in the hilly hilly hilly terrain located in Nanjing Lishui for trial breeding and regional tests.

Settle down to find a good, then to determine the appropriate cultivation varieties, different varieties of cold demand, cold resistance, drought tolerance and so on are not the same. After more than 20 years of trial and regional tests and productive tests, the team has successively screened out 7 rabbit-eye blueberry varieties such as pink blue, garden blue and splendid, and 3 high-bush blueberry varieties such as O'Neill, Mist and Lexi have been promoted in Jiangsu Hills and other places. In recent years, Li Weilin's team has selected two outstanding varieties "Chandler" and "Betsy Blue" from the newly introduced varieties.

With the deepening of people's understanding of blueberries and blackberries, "foreign fruits" have gradually settled down, and are changing from "small fruits" to "big industries". Thanks to the continuous innovation of cultivation technology, blueberry blackberries can also achieve good economic benefits in hilly mountains and barren slopes. One year flowering, two years of fruit, three years of abundant production, the highest time one acre of land a year can reach an income of 70,000 or 80,000 yuan, very popular with local farmers. As rare and characteristic fruits of nutrition and health care, blueberries and blackberries are increasingly favored by domestic consumers. Its fruits are rich in anthocyanins, ellagic acid, tocopherols (vitamin E) and other polyphenols, with outstanding efficacy. "In the later period, there is still a lot of room for this market to rise." Li Weilin said.

At present, in the market, in addition to eating fresh fruits, the demand for corresponding deep-processed products is also further expanding. In order to further promote the development of this industry and form a large industry that helps the people to become rich and revitalize the countryside, it is necessary to carry out the development of commodity productization technology and develop functional high-value-added deep processing products, so as to promote the structural adjustment of the supply side of agricultural products and boost the quality and efficiency of the industry and high-quality development.

In 2017, Li Weilin was transferred from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Jiangsu Province to Nanjing Forestry University. At present, he is the chief scientist of the modern agricultural characteristic fruit tree industry system in Jiangsu Province and is undertaking the national key research and development program project. In order to realize this idea, he made full use of the advantages of the school's "double-first-class" university construction, further integrated the team resources, focused on the functional components of blueberries and blackberries, studied their formulation technology and productization technology, and helped enterprises develop high value-added deep processing products.

"In the past, blueberries and blackberries produced a large amount of pomace in the process of processing conventional product juices, fruit wines, fruit vinegars, etc., about 20%-30% of the raw materials." Li Weilin said, "Many times it is discarded or simply disposed of as fertilizer, which is a huge waste." After the team's preliminary research, blueberries and blackberries processed pomace contain a large number of anthocyanins, and the tocopherols in blackberries are almost all present in seeds that account for about 80% of the weight of pomace.

"Now we are committed to the preparation of food coloring, high-purity anthocyanins and seed oils, and natural vitamin E technology from blueberries and blackberry processing pomace, which can not only turn waste into treasure, so that blueberries and blackberries can achieve maximum resource utilization, but also can reduce or even eliminate environmental pollution caused by pomace disposal, which is both ecological and pocket-rich."

As a forestry researcher, Li Weilin said that he has always had a natural affinity for the land and those who depend on the land for a living. "If a blueberry tree is planted, the benefits are thirty to fifty years, which is a one-time investment, long-term benefit project." In order to make this "long-term income" rich forest deeply rooted in the north and south of the motherland, Li Weilin led the team to still tackle the details of the whole industrial chain of the supply and marketing of seeds, and make up for the shortcomings while doing a good job in industrial technology support. "Not only should we let the 'foreign fruits' settle in China, but we must also let them become a new way to help the Chinese people move from poverty alleviation to rural revitalization."

Source: Nanjing Daily