Minqin melon sweet and fragrant world
Yan Delun
More than 20 years ago, Mr. Dong Ruixiang, a Gansu native living in Denmark, sent a letter to the main leaders of Minqin County from thousands of miles overseas, in which he warmly praised the Minqin melon as the best melon he had eaten in the world. Mr. Dong said that he is willing to do his part to promote Minqin melon around the world, so that more people at home and abroad can understand Minqin melon and eat Minqin melon. Mr. Dong's ardent hope soon became a vivid reality. In 2007, before the Beijing Olympic Games, the four varieties of honeydew, tianxiang honey, jinhongbao and silver peduncle in Minqin honeydew melon won the first, second and third prizes of the "Beijing Olympic Recommended Fruit and Chinese Famous Fruit" respectively. With this glory and the previous national "green food" certification, as well as a number of honors won in the country gold, silver and bronze awards, Minqin honeydew melon walked into the restaurants of the Olympic Games and the CCTV Young Singers Grand Prix, walked into many domestic melon and fruit wholesale markets, walked into countless city supermarkets that respect green food, and walked into Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the people are diligent in honeydew melons, and the fragrance floats in the world.
The production of Minqin melon can be traced back to the late Qing Dynasty. When returning to their hometowns to visit their relatives, Minqin people, who served as county commanders and governors in some parts of Xinjiang, brought seeds of cantaloupe in Xinjiang and tried to plant them in Minqin, where the water and soil conditions were similar, producing "melon babies" with green and red skins, and the quality was better than that of the place of origin. In the 1960s and 1970s, Minqin successfully introduced French brand melon from Lanzhou and began to plant it, but the area was not large, and the products were welcomed by Hong Kong citizens with "fragrant like osmanthus flowers and sweet like honey". More than ten years later, the melon research institute of Gansu Agricultural University crossed with the Mexican melon variety "manna", selected and bred the "Yellow River honeydew melon", and became the main product of Minqin melon, which was welcomed by the market with yellow skin like gold, green flesh like jade, sweet juice, easy storage and resistance to luck. After years of development, now, Minqin honeydew melon has formed five major strains such as yellow skin red meat type golden ruby series, white skin green meat type white lan melon series, reticulated cantaloupe series, small fruit type jade golden fragrance series, Yellow River honeydew melon series, etc., which can meet the needs of consumers with different tastes in the southeast, southwest and northwest, so there is also a saying of "looking at Hangzhou, eating melon to Minqin".
Why does Minqin honeydew melon have quality that is difficult to match in other melon producing areas? Why is it more sugary than melon in other regions? Does it taste better than melons from other regions? Only because it has unique production conditions. Because Minqin is surrounded by badain Jaran and Tengger Desert, there is a lot of sandy soil, long sunshine hours, a large temperature difference between day and night, and no pollution in the environment. Coupled with the organic combination of traditional planting experience and modern pollution-free cultivation technology, the use of advanced science and technology such as hybrid breeding, the varieties of melon planting in Minqin have increased from the initial two or three to more than ten, and then it has increased geometrically, reaching more than one hundred. Not only are there more and more varieties, but the quality is also getting better and better. Some people say that in the melon field, look at the green "Xizhou honey", the yellow as real gold "golden ruby", the brilliant silver "silver pedicle", don't say eat, is to look at this color, it has already made people feel rich and noble.
As a characteristic advantageous industry of Minqin, the production of Minqin honeydew melon requires huge financial, material and human input. Production, management and marketing, every link is a big article that must be done well. Minqin melon farmers with rich experience in production management invented the machinery of film laying and picking melon transportation in the production of melons, which greatly reduced the heavy burden of carrying bags of melons of more than two tons per mu to the ground again and again. In order to make the advantageous industries stronger and larger, sell hundreds of thousands of tons of honeydew melons in a timely manner, and let farmers obtain the best economic benefits, Minqin County actively carries out marketing activities by taking advantage of the brand advantages that have been formed and the characteristics of convenient Internet information. Adopt a variety of ways to promote the "Minqin Melon Festival" and the promotion of online celebrity live streaming with goods, and explore the diversified marketing model of "professional market + enterprise + e-commerce" and "box + fine packaging + express delivery". By improving transportation conditions and optimizing the business circulation service environment, we can make distant businesses and near-distance customers omnipotent, and container shipping can do everything. Some native distribution talents, busy in the melon field during the planting season, active market when selling, not only as a large planter, but also sign sales orders, and with the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other large cities of the domestic melon and fruit wholesaler to establish a long-term supply and marketing cooperative relationship. Multi-party intervention and joint efforts have eliminated the hidden worry of "if you want to pour the stove, plant blisters" for melon farmers, thus achieving the best-selling of honeydew melons. In this way, Minqin honeydew melon has become a "melon" welcomed by the market, a "melon" favored by consumers, a "golden melon" for farmers to get rich, and a "treasure melon" for economic development. Minqin has also become a veritable "hometown of Chinese honeydew melons", starting from midsummer to mid-autumn, and merchants from the south of the sea and the north of the sea, happy to marry gold and jade, and spend the honeymoon of the fragrant season together.
Photo by Lu Wulin, a busy e-commerce trading area
The picture comes from the Internet, invaded and deleted
EDIT: Festivals and Publicity Section