There are more than 600 million acres of hilly and mountainous land on the mainland, accounting for about one-third of the total cultivated land area of the country, but the traditional large-scale agricultural machinery commonly used is not suitable for these cultivated land with complex terrain. This year, a batch of prototypes of new small agricultural machinery that have just been developed and rolled off the production line came to the terraced fields in Dingxi, Gansu Province, where they sowed potatoes. How are these new agricultural machines performing? Take a look at the fields with the reporter.
02:24
How do small agricultural machinery "jump" on the terraces at an altitude of 1,700 meters?
Dingxi, Gansu Province, is the core potato producing area of the mainland, and the large terraced fields here are cultivated mainly in two ways:
- Some of them rely on manual cultivation, which is costly;
- Part of it relies on ordinary agricultural machinery, but it is subject to the small plot, which cannot be used and the efficiency cannot be improved.
Therefore, the small agricultural machinery that can match the terraced planting has become the biggest shortcoming of agricultural production here.
Before this year's spring ploughing, Gansu put the first batch of special wheeled tractors for hilly and mountainous areas into 22 pilot counties and districts in the province, which are the latest achievements of many enterprises inside and outside the province. In Anding District, Dingxi City, Li Judong's cooperative received five new small tractors and a batch of seeders this year.
Before you start farming, you need to drive your farm machinery up the hill. Starting from the cooperative at an altitude of 1,600 meters to the end of the terraces at an altitude of more than 1,700 meters, the drop is more than 100 meters, and the winding mountain distance is as long as 10 kilometers.
Following Brother Li all the way up, the biggest feeling is: the mountain is big, the ditch is deep, the slope is steep, and the ground is small. On the inside of the terraced fields, there is also a steep dirt road that "does not coil the mountain", which is the only way for growers to patrol the fields and work every day. Although the road is difficult, the growers never stop.
Li Judong, chairman of Gansu Xuanxuan Agricultural Machinery Service Farmers Professional Cooperative: The northeast is a plain, and you can plant 100 acres of land there, and you can plant it in two days, and it may take a week to plant a terraced field like ours. It is difficult to pull seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides.
CCTV reporter Chen Bo: I just walked the 4th floor of farmland, I feel that it is actually a little difficult, because you have to maintain an uphill direction, your feet have been exerting force, and you are wheezing after walking 4 floors, how do you usually walk?
Li Judong: I usually walk on not one or two floors but dozens of floors every day, and sometimes more than a dozen times.
Reporter: Others brush the number of steps, and you brush the number of layers.
If the difficulty of climbing the mountain is only the first threshold, then another problem in terraced farming is that the space utilization rate is too low. Along the way, we saw that each terrace was of a different shape, and at the edge of the field, the growers had to set aside some open space for safety. This means that the area of land that can be planted is reduced a bit.
How do the "masters of space utilization" on the terraces farm?
Terraced operation, the road is narrow and the slope is steep, and large machinery has no way to go, so small machinery can arrive smoothly. Upon arrival, what are the advantages of the new small agricultural machinery compared to the previous ones in the planting process? What are the different challenges of working in irregular terraces?
02:29
During the few days of the interview, the reporter saw two groups of people with obviously different styles of dressing - agricultural mechanics who test drove and discussed the driving experience, and technical experts from agricultural machinery manufacturers. They are conducting combat tests of small farm machinery on terraces. They said that the most brilliant function of this batch of small agricultural machinery is that the middle of the whole machine can be bent at a certain angle, commonly known as: twisting the waist.
Reporter: There are two agricultural machinery around me, one is the agricultural machinery that the local villagers have been using, and the other is a prototype of the small agricultural machinery that has just been put into use this year. Now two mechanics are beating the steering wheel to death, drawing a circle by making extreme turns.
In the middle of the small agricultural machinery, a "twisting" function is realized. If you look at it from the air at this time, the circle it draws is obviously smaller than the circle drawn by the previous agricultural machine. This is also an important significance of small agricultural machinery to climb the hilly terraces, that is, to be able to flash and move in a more cramped space.
Zhang Jilin, Director of Agricultural Machinery Service Center of Anding District, Dingxi City, Gansu Province: The land that looks unusable is very small, only three or four square meters. In the past, the turning radius of the machine was relatively large, so it had to turn around six or seven meters in front.
The ability of small agricultural machines to make use of space is also reflected in the ability of each ridge to be used. Their wheel base has been reduced from 1.3 meters to 1.1 meters. This means that what was originally only possible to grow 5 rows of potatoes can now accommodate 6 rows. This small change can increase the yield of potatoes per mu by 600 catties.
At the same time, the loaded Beidou module also allows the small agricultural machinery to plant each layer of irregular fields, so that the planting shape fits the terrain.
Han Zeming, an electrical engineer in China: For the irregular plots of hills and mountains, we have a set of curve operation mode. Generally speaking, every 3 meters, the system will automatically collect a location, and finally converge into a complete curve, and then our agricultural machinery can carry out a curve operation according to its predetermined trajectory. It is very adaptable to hilly and mountainous irregular plots.
Small fields are difficult to cultivate, and "micro" agricultural machinery shows its skills
In Dingxi, Gansu Province, there are still some small fields of about one acre, these smaller terraces, even small agricultural machinery can't go up, so how to plant? In response to the actual needs of farmers, local small agricultural machinery enterprises have accelerated research and development, and launched lighter and simpler equipment to make it easier to farm in the mountains.
03:07
In Dingxi, a small agricultural machinery manufacturing enterprise, the reporter saw rows of smaller and lighter walk-behind agricultural machinery. Unlike the usual walk-behind rotary tillers, they produce walk-behind planters for all kinds of crops. The person in charge of the enterprise told reporters that in the local area, there are many fields with a size of no more than 1 acre on the terraces. The sowing process of these lands is still in the most extensive stage, and the seeds are sown by hand. Not only is the labor intensity high, but the seedling quality is also not good. The walk-behind seeder they developed is smaller in size, and some intimate small designs have been added to consider how to save effort.
Corners can be lifted easily, and when moving in a straight line, there are multiple power levels that can be adjusted, minimizing physical exertion. And such a small agricultural machine can also achieve precision sowing.
Zhao Ming, chairman of Sanniu Agricultural Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., Dingxi City, Gansu Province: We can sow 1 large broad bean, and we can sow 2 to 3 seeds, or 1 seed.
Reporter: A very core component of these precision seeders is the seed extractor. The two black ones are the seed pickers of two different sizes of beans, and the brown and yellow ones are the seed pickers of the sorghum. With each rotation of the seed extractor, a brush is applied to the top to precisely fix each seed in this nest.
The person in charge of the enterprise said that in the past two years, they have more than 130 patents around the research and development of various small agricultural machinery, all of which are focused on the actual needs of terraced operations. Now, small farm machinery is climbing layer by layer on the terraces, bringing modern planting methods to this ancient land.
It is understood that Gansu Province will spend two years to put a total of 1,598 small short board agricultural machinery in 31 counties and districts.
Liu Wenwu, Director of the Agricultural Mechanization Management Division of the Gansu Provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs: Relying on the agricultural machinery extension department of the county and district, there are more than 300 application subjects to carry out field performance, testing, verification and demonstration and promotion, and we must complete the task of field trials of nearly 200,000 mu. In response to the problems reflected in this year's spring ploughing production, we feedback to the enterprise, the enterprise has improved and improved, and will invest in a new generation of prototypes next year.
Looking at the whole country, the total area of terraced fields of about 280 million mu accounts for about 14% of the total cultivated land, covering 27 provinces and cities and 1,708 counties across the country. In the future, with the use of more small agricultural machinery, the planting efficiency of these lands will continue to improve, contributing more to the food security of the mainland.
(CCTV reporter Liang Lijuan, Zhao Xu, Chen Bo, Zhang Lei, Zhang Hongbo)