Tibet's 4,500-meter-high Nagqu grows a "small forest"

Source: China News Network

China News Service, Nagqu, August 3 (Reporter Jiang Feibo) "We have lived in the Changtang grassland for generations, and when we were young, we never saw trees, and then we went to Lhasa to see trees. Recently, the 52-year-old Xi Shuo told the China News Agency that he is now responsible for watering seedlings in the base of Yili Ecological Technology Co., Ltd. in Nagqu City, which has 300,000 trees.

With an average elevation of about 4,500 meters above sea level and a harsh climate, Nagqu was previously one of the few cities in China without trees.

In 2016, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China launched the "Demonstration Project of Key Technology Research and Development and Greening Model for Urban Tree Planting in Nagqu Area", led by Elion Group, a sand control enterprise in Kubuqi, Inner Mongolia, and jointly launched a "green challenge" in Nagqu.

The people have always longed for green. It is reported that in the 1990s, Nagqu forestry technicians established a 2-acre tree planting test base to try to plant alpine willows, cypress branches, sea buckthorn, etc., with little effect.

In 2007, Nagqu introduced 20 spruce trees and 10 Peking poplars from Lhasa, and 30 alpine willows from Suo County, of which 13 spruce trees survived and Beijing poplars survived. "These 14 trees are the oldest trees in nagqu." Raton, chief of the afforestation section of the Nagqu City Forestry and Grassland Bureau, said.

Kelsang Quzhen, vice president and senior engineer of the Tibet Autonomous Region Academy of Forestry Sciences, said that the wind is strong, the frost damage is irregular, the saplings are difficult to take root, and the soil is difficult to retain water and fertilizer. The strong ultraviolet rays of the plateau, low temperature, will make the leaves form a "physiological drainage".

Kelsang Quzhen said conventional afforestation techniques have made it difficult for trees planted in Nagqu to survive.

In the ecological base, the reporter saw greenhouse seedlings, wind barriers and water-warming tree enclosures and other facilities.

Hao Wei, head of the base, said that in the selection and breeding of seedlings, the project team used big data to screen and compare germplasm resources. A climate monitoring station has been established to collect various indicators of temperature, humidity, wind speed, light intensity, soil climate and growth characteristics of species, and formulate windproof and cold-proof measures. In view of the low soil temperature and insufficient accumulated temperature, they invented the PE tree surrounding the soil temperature technology, which can absorb solar radiation and convert it into heat to warm the roots of the seedlings.

He said that the team planted a total of 400,000 spruce, alpine willow, golden plum and lilac trees in Naqu, and "under the conditions of scientific conservation, 75% of the trees successfully survived 5 winters and solved the technical problem of planting trees above 4500 meters above sea level." ”

The reporter saw in the courtyard of the Nagqu Municipal Government, the Science and Technology Bureau and the nursing home that the tallest spruce was more than 2 meters, and some of them produced pine cones, and the greening and planting of trees in Nagqu had formed a certain scale. (End)