How do you know how to farm? Very few people think about it. Even farmers seem to have become accustomed to following the established pattern of watering, fertilizing, spraying, and pruning, working at sunrise and resting at sunset.
But for Zhao Zeru, a farmer in Danling County, Meishan City, Sichuan Province, planting fruit trees is not a task, but something he loves. Although he is 65 years old, he is still trying to figure out how to plant the orchard well, how to grow the "king of fruits" quality fruits, and to put it more bluntly, how to sell an acre of citrus at a higher price.
His idea coincided with that of the students who had come to Danling Orange Science and Technology Academy, who had improved the acidic soil and increased the yield of citrus by at least 10 percent, providing blood to this agricultural county, where citrus is the main source of income.
It wasn't until Pinduoduo supported the Science and Technology Courtyard Competition that more people noticed this story. This competition has given new meaning to the postgraduate experience of students participating in farmland experiments: "In fact, farming and scientific research are very lonely, thanks to the competition, we are seen by more people." ”
The story continues. Zhao Zeru continues to guard his orchard, and his next generation has begun to use the largest agricultural product sales platform on the Internet to sell "hometown business cards" everywhere.
Zhao Zeru discussed agricultural technology with students in the science and technology courtyard and talked about happiness. (Zhao Ye/photo)
The cash cow of Danling "King of Fruits".
Zhao Zeru has a silver van that has been driven for 11 years.
For 11 years, Zhao Zeru has driven this car worth 40,000 yuan to pull fertilizers and pesticides, and when he has nothing to do, he has to go up the mountain to inspect the orchard. He drove to give agricultural training classes to local farmers, and walked the streets to answer questions from villagers. He also "received" China's vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs, and was interviewed by CCTV and the People's Daily in the same car.
In Danling County, Meishan City, Sichuan Province, there is no car more abundant than Lao Zhao's van experience. Now that the car is mottled and slowed down, Lao Zhao has removed the rear seats to facilitate the placement of farm tools. Lao Zhao's son couldn't stand it and wanted him to change to a car, but he was not happy.
This season, Lao Zhao got up at 6 o'clock in the morning every day, carried the bucket up the mountain, took out scissors from the bucket as he walked, and cut off the excess branches with a "click". He conforms to the image of an authentic farmer in everyone's impression, with tanned skin, a loud voice, and a welcoming smile. In the slack season, there are no people in the large orchards, and the sound of scissors is crisp, and it spreads far and wide.
Lao Zhao is 65 years old this year, "has planted orange trees all his life", and is a well-known local "soil expert". In 2013, Danling County began to hold the "Ignorant Fire Planting Technology Competition", and Lao Zhao won the "King of Popularity". If each family has questions about fruit trees, they will call him, and they also need to make an appointment when they are busy. When he went to the restaurant for dinner, Lao Zhao often met acquaintances and invited him to sit down, "I was consulted before."
Lao Zhao is more serious. He was invited to be the referee in the annual fruit bagging competition, and he eliminated those who were the first to finish but were not standardized and beautiful.
"He planted trees like raising a child. This is how the villagers described Lao Zhao. After a pause, he added, "No, he's more interested in planting trees than raising children." ”
During the pruning season, Zhao Zeru was working in the fields. (Zhao Ye/photo)
Planting orange trees can make money, Zhao Zeru knew it when he was a teenager. At that time, the market price of rice was eight cents per catty, nine cents for millet, and two cents for navel oranges. Zhao Zeru's family planted a few navel orange trees, and when they were ripe, they were sold and earned 6 yuan.
In 1982, Zhao Zeru contracted 16 acres of orchards to grow citrus at a price of 350 yuan a year. 16 acres of orchards, any kind of can recover the cost, Zhao Zeru calculated. As soon as the family was separated, Zhao Zeru was assigned five rooms, and he made a lot of determination at that time: "If I lose a year's money, I will demolish one room, then I can work for at least five years." Ten years later, Zhao Zeru ended the contract and earned a total of 50,000 yuan.
He used 20,000 yuan to build a two-story small building for his family, and the exterior walls were covered with tiles throughout, "There is no better house than my house on the side of the road within a radius of 10 kilometers."
In 1992, Zhao Zeru, who ended the contract, began to plant early-maturing navel oranges and mandarins in his 4 acres of land. Due to the saturation of the market, these orange varieties sell for only one or two cents, and Zhao Zeru said: "They are not as expensive as rice."
In 1998, the local government introduced the late-maturing citrus variety "Shiranui" and launched it at a staggered peak to alleviate the pain of homogeneous competition among local fruit farmers, so as to achieve the goal of increasing income levels.
Zhao Zeru is one of the first local fruit farmers to switch to fire. A friend suggested that Zhao Zeru try to plant dozens of trees first to see the market. But he did not like this conservatism, and he said that he was bold and temperamental, and that what he decided had to be done, and in the end he would change half of it to ignorant fire.
At the beginning, Zhao Zeru didn't grasp the picking time of Shiranui, and after picking Shiranui in the first year, it was piled up all over the room, so sour that he couldn't eat it, let alone sell it. His wife sighed on the side, but Zhao Zeru didn't want to give up. Slowly, Zhao Zeru learned about the "tree preservation" technique of planting without knowing the fire, and began to bag the fruits on the trees in winter to keep them warm. In the continuous attempts, he summed up the time of picking fruit without knowing the fire, preferably in March every year, too early will be sour, and it is not easy to save it later. In 2012, his Shiranui sold for 2.5 yuan a catty, twice as much as navel oranges. That year, he replanted all the navel oranges and lost the fire.
In addition to "keeping trees fresh", Zhao Zeru also learned to thin fruits. In summer, when the fire grows to the size of the thumb cover, the deformed fruits and extra-small fruits should be thinned out to ensure the supply of nutrients. For an adult tree, Zhao Zeru thins the fruit with an average of 20-25 leaves every year, and thins 10% each time, twice a year.
That year, his ignorant fire was sold for 50,000 yuan. When he got the cash and went home, he saw his wife, who was cooking, and poured the money into her apron, "You see that Shuguo is correct, I have earned money." "Four acres do not know fire, and the highest can be sold for 27-280,000 yuan a year.
In 2014, 56-year-old Zhao Zeru decided to contract 60 acres of orchards. The wife thinks that he will be able to retire in four years, take care of his grandchildren at home, and enjoy the happiness, why should he take this risk? The wife should make himself so tired? The wife couldn't figure it out.
If Zhao Ze has his own plans, he only has one son who is an auxiliary police officer and two grandchildren. contracted this 60-acre orchard to plant without knowing the fire, and let his son learn planting techniques with him, even if he has no job, he earns more than 200,000 yuan a year, which is enough for the family to live.
Earlier, Zhao Zeru knew a teacher at Sichuan Agricultural University who told him that Danling belongs to acidic loess and needs organic fertilizer to grow fruit trees better. When there was no condition, Zhao Zeru dug a ditch and buried garbage, honeycomb cinders, and rice stalks in the ground, and the fruits planted were really better than those of his fellow villagers.
In 2016, Zhao Zeru spent 200,000 yuan to buy organic fertilizer, and first asked the manual to spend half a month digging a trench in a 60-acre orchard, and he supervised the workers to dig 60-80 centimeters deep. Then it took half a month to sprinkle the organic fertilizer layer by layer into the ditch and bury it, "every tree has to apply about 100 catties of organic fertilizer."
Every day, the villagers watched, and at first he explained the benefits of organic fertilizer over and over again, but then he became a little impatient.
"Lao Zhao, isn't it good to change cars for 200,000?"
"I'm a fool, and I planted my car in the field. ”
In 2018, Zhao Zeru won the "King of Popularity" in the "Ignorant Fire Technology Competition" in Danling County. In 2021, his son Zhao Gang participated in the competition with the ignorant fire in the orchard and won the title of "King of Fruits".
70% of the income of Danling people comes from growing citrus, and the picture shows the harvest season, with families picking in the orchard. (He Hao/photo)
Uncle Zhao "loves to learn"
In March 2022, when Zhao Zeru was waiting for buyers to harvest the fruit by the orchard, he saw two students coming and asked about this year's harvest. There were few young people who came to the orchard, and they looked like students, so he guessed that the two were students from the Danling Orange Science and Technology Academy, so he gave each other a bag of ignorant fire.
The "Science and Technology Academy" was initiated by Zhang Fusuo, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of China Agricultural University, and his team in Quzhou County, Hebei Province: to apply science and technology to agriculture and realize the unity of production practice and academics. In 2017, the "Danling Orange Science and Technology Academy" was jointly established by Southwest University, the Citrus Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Danling County Government and enterprises (Sichuan Jinxiang Sairui Chemical Co., Ltd., Dancheng Modern Fruit Industry Co., Ltd.).
By 2022, Zhang Lijun and Li Dong will be stationed in Danling, which is already the third session. Their 15-acre experimental plot is provided by Dancheng Fruit Industry, which is 50 meters away from Zhao Zeru's orchard.
After testing the soil of 208 households in Danling County, Zhang Lijun and Li Dong found two major problems: severe soil acidification, with an average pH of 5.09, and even as low as 4 in the old production areas, calcium and magnesium deficiency, and excessive chemical fertilizer input, which is costly to the environment.
In Danling County, with a citrus planting area of 200,000 mu and a total output value of 3 billion yuan, it is the largest ignorant fire production area in the country, and 70% of the local people's income comes from citrus. Solving these two problems is also to "replenish blood" for the local economy of Danling.
But for Zhang Lijun and Li Dong, they understand technical and theoretical knowledge but rarely practice, and although they study agriculture, farming is really unfamiliar - the two only read "Citrus Science" before coming to Danling. Standing in front of the 15-acre orchard, they were still apprehensive in the face of the next nearly two years of stationing. Not to mention solving the existing problems, it is still unknown whether the orchard can be managed well.
Zhao Zeru appeared in their line of sight. At first, it was a photo posted on the orchard billboard, but later the two orchards got close to each other and began to greet each other. When they went to other people's orchards to ask some planting questions, almost all of them said, "Why don't you go to Zhao Zeru?"
Hardworking and kind-hearted is Zhao Zeru's first impression of Zhang Lijun. Not all farmers soak in the orchard every day, but as long as they are in the orchard, they can find Zhao Zeru.
One day in April, the two stood in Zhao Zeru's orchard asking for help. They called Zhao Zeru "Teacher Zhao" and came up with the problem of not knowing the basic operations of pruning, fertilizing and spraying, which could not be solved by manual labor.
From that day on, the two followed Zhao Zeru to learn pruning. Zhao Zeru taught how to prune a tree thoroughly so that the fruit would be evenly exposed to light. When pruning twigs and twigs, hold your hands on the scissors. How to cut the fruit from the branch without leaving a stalk, so as not to puncture the fruit placed next to it. The two took a video and went back to watch it repeatedly, and a week later, they left the school, and their title was changed from "Teacher Zhao" to "Uncle Zhao".
Zhao Zeru took students Zhang Lijun (middle) and Li Dong (right) from the Science and Technology Academy to study in the field. (Zhao Ye/photo)
Regarding labor, Zhao Zeru helped them hire people to prune and fertilize. The two wanted to invite Zhao Zeru to dinner to express their gratitude, and Zhao Zeru waved his hand: "The two students have no income, so they don't have to spend money to invite me to dinner." ”
In order to improve soil acidification in the area, Zhang Lijun and Li Dong planted green manure such as February orchid, hairy leaf and light leaf leaf to replace weeds. Weeds compete with fruit trees for soil nutrients, and when they grow up, they will climb around the trees, which also requires labor costs to clean up. But green manure does not, and it can still be used as fertilizer after decay.
At the beginning, Zhang Lijun's recommendation of green manure to local fruit farmers was not smooth, and people would ask "how much does it cost and what is the use", even if they sent seeds, they would not scatter them. Including Zhao Zeru, "he definitely doesn't trust it very much, and he taught us all planting techniques."
In July, Danling County ushered in the hottest temperature in 61 years, with a temperature of more than 40 degrees. Sun-burned fruits appear in the orchard, and potholes appear on the surface like they have been burned by fire. The fruit could not be sold, but could only rot in the orchard.
After consulting with the school's teachers, Zhang Lijun and Li Dong watered for two hours from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. every day to prevent the expansion of the sunburn fruit. In order to save energy, they also installed sprinkler irrigation facilities.
Fruit farmers passing by, including Zhao Zeru, were skeptical of the law. "It's useless," they discussed, "the water evaporates so fast". Zhang Lijun was also puzzled, but she still persisted for more than a month.
After the hottest summer, the proportion of sunburn fruit in Danling County that year was as high as 30%, and even Zhao Zeru, who managed very carefully, also lost 15%. In Zhang Lijun and Li Dong's 15 acres of experimental field, the sunburn fruit is only 5%.
Because of this success, Zhao Zeru invited Zhang Lijun and Li Dong to eat at home. "The food is all farmhouse stir-fried vegetables, but this kind of reward is much happier than winning any award, which shows that Uncle Zhao began to recognize and trust us, and he also began to discuss planting technology with us. Zhang Lijun said.
After that high temperature, Zhao Zeru invested 50,000 yuan in the orchard to install sprinkler irrigation. Each sprinkler irrigation is 3 meters high, twice as tall as Li Dong's, and can cover every fruit tree.
He began to sprinkle the green manure and improvers given by Zhang Lijun, and if they were not enough, he would buy them from the science and technology courtyard. He would also ask Zhang Lijun questions, and once he saw Zhang Lijun spreading fertilizer on the experimental field, and came to ask about one of the raw materials.
Being able to keep learning and being willing to improve his planting techniques is Zhao Zeru's second impression of Zhang Lijun, and it is also what makes him different from other farmers.
Good fruit is a lifelong thing
After a year of on-site experiments, under the guidance of the teacher, Zhang Lijun designed an acidic soil conditioner and built a set of healthy soil and a green production model for energy conservation and emission reduction in citrus orchards.
Through this scheme, the soil pH value of the experimental plot of the Science and Technology Academy increased by 0.6 units, the calcium and magnesium content increased significantly, the carbon emissions of the experimental orchard were reduced by 50%, and the emissions of other greenhouse gases decreased to varying degrees, and the yield increased by 12%, the sugar-acid ratio increased by 29%, and the net profit increased by 17% under the condition of reduced cost input in the orchard. With the application of the corresponding amendment, the soil acidification of Zhao Zeru's orchard was also alleviated, the yellowing of the leaves was improved, and the yield increased by 10%.
In addition, on the sales side, orange products such as Shiranui and Ehime No. 38 supported by "Danling Orange Science and Technology Courtyard" rely on online platforms such as Pinduoduo to accelerate their entry into the national market. Local fruit farmers also concentrate small and medium-sized fruits to produce fruit wine, extending the local industrial chain, and fruit wine products are also on the Pinduoduo platform.
On January 7, the finals of the second "Pinduoduo Cup" Science and Technology Academy Competition were held in Dali, Yunnan. On the stage of this competition in scientific research and agricultural technology, the "Danling Orange Science and Technology Academy" represented by Zhang Lijun and Li Dong finally won the second prize. Hou Kaidi, vice president of Pinduoduo, presented the award and delivered a speech on behalf of the company: "If the science and technology academy has demolished the wall between the school and society, between disciplines, between teaching and scientific research, and between teaching and learning, then Pinduoduo will help break the wall between scientific research and the market, help promote the standardization, branding, and digital development of agricultural specialties, and improve the modern agricultural industry chain." ”
"Even if this is a systematic project with a long development cycle and a slow return on investment, we will spare no effort to firmly reinvest in agriculture and adhere to long-termism. Zhang Lijun is very content. She and Li Dong have been in their third year of study and are facing anxiety about finding a job after graduation. "We are really grateful to Pinduoduo for winning this award. Whether it is scientific research or farming, it is a very lonely process. If it weren't for Pinduoduo's support for this competition, our results would not have been seen by so many people. ”
Hou Kaidi, vice president of Pinduoduo (first from left), presented awards to the second-prize teams, including Danling Jucheng Science and Technology Academy. (Photo courtesy of the Organizing Committee)
Because some younger students can't stand the tiredness, suffering and isolation in the countryside, they often complain in the diary, hoping that the teacher will recall them after seeing it. But Zhang Lijun and Li Dong have never, they only write happy things, such as promoting green manure in training classes for farmers.
On January 14th, Zhang Lijun and Li Dong returned to Danling with the honor of the second prize, and after completing the last fruit picking test, they will return to school to write their thesis and wait for graduation.
In order to congratulate them on winning the award, Zhao Zeru invited the two students to dinner. His "students" were leaving, and they couldn't help but feel a little excited: "I hope that future students will be able to endure hardships like you and help our farmers solve their problems." ”
In 2021, when Zhao Zeru went up the mountain to take care of the orchard, he was broken by a bouncing stone and broke two bones in his right calf. His son Zhao Gang saw these in his eyes, and after resigning, he began to inherit Zhao Zeru's orchard. About ten years ago, Ehime began to sell at a good price, and Zhao Zeru began to graft and plant Ehime again, and this year he harvested 15 acres of Ehime and 15 acres of Shiranui in his orchard, and the remaining 30 acres of Shiranui were just grafted into Ehime.
Zhao Gang was not so interested in planting, but he still studied with his father. He was young and knowledgeable about the web, and when he saw red spiders on the leaves, he told his father that it was time to use pesticides to kill insects. Zhao Zeru was not in a hurry: "You don't need to fight, you can't breed on such a hot day." ”
"It turns out that there is really no need for medicine, and you can't accept him in this regard. Zhao Gang said.
In 2022, Zhao Gang, like his friends, also opened an online store in Pinduoduo, buying and sending citrus from Danling County and the surrounding areas to the whole country, earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
Now, Zhao Zeru's yard is filled with citrus, nets and cardboard boxes. In order to facilitate the storage of citrus, he also built two freezers, which can store 400,000 catties of Ehime for more than 20 days. Every day, there are hired neighbors in the yard to divide the citrus, and they are quite familiar with citrus, and they can sense the accurate weight with a light measurement of their hands.
There are trucks waiting at the door, and 6,000 pieces of citrus are sent from Zhao Zeru's home to all parts of the country every day through Pinduoduo. Despite the abundance of citrus production this year, "everything that could be sold was sold, and my Ehime sold it at the market price of 3 yuan." Huang Yubin, a local farmer, said.
At 8 o'clock in the evening, Zhao Zeru's yard began Pinduoduo's live broadcast, the anchor tried her best to explain the history and benefits of Danling citrus, and if necessary, she would also use a knife to cut those fruits, so that the audience could intuitively see the quality of the fruits.
Starting at 8 o'clock in the evening, Zhao Gang's Pinduoduo store began live broadcast. (Zhao Ye/photo)
Regarding the Internet, Zhao Zeru doesn't understand. After returning from the orchard in the mountains and having dinner, he would silently go back to the house and sleep, leaving the anchors and packers busy until the early hours of the morning.
By six o'clock the next morning, he would still get up on time, drive his van up the hill, and walk into his orchard with farm tools. He treats each fruit like a child, knowing its habits and preferences. Those fruits that have accompanied him all his life will not disappoint his hope for a better life.