【Editor's note】With the emergence of new types of food, which technologies are safe and promote the development of the food industry? Which "technologies" are gimmicks and pseudo-concepts? Clearing the fog, the food channel of the central radio network has specially launched the "Food Real Technology" column to report new products, new technologies and new insights in the food industry, which has the functions of science popularization and rumor-refuting, and presents the development and changes of the food industry and cutting-edge technologies more clearly in front of consumers, so as to create a healthy and rational consumption atmosphere and further release the consumption potential.
CCTV Beijing, May 15 (Reporter Shao Lanjie) Entering May, with the end of the apple flowering period, apple trees began to enter the fruit-setting and fruit-setting period. After years of development, China has become the world's largest apple producer, accounting for more than 50% of the world's apple planting area and output. Apples, which are large and affordable, silently supporting the "basic plate" of Chinese people's fruit consumption, have suddenly become a hot spot recently.
Recently, some netizens said that apples have no "fruit tension", which has caused heated discussions, and some people even call apples "steamed buns" in the fruit industry and "boiled water" in the beverage industry, which indirectly confirms Apple's "national fruit" status. In the case of continuous innovation of fruit varieties, apples that are easy to buy and have a down-to-earth price naturally do not have much sense of existence. However, in the fruit industry, not every fruit enjoys this treatment, which is behind the sense of consumer security brought about by the accumulation of years of development of China's apple industry.
Returning to the consumer's point of view, why are apples now "tasteless to eat, and it is a pity to discard them"? Is it really not as delicious as before? The flavor and texture of apples are mainly influenced by variety, soil, water and fertilizer, light and other factors, and these factors have indeed changed over the past few decades.
Apple production is increasing year by year
"Apples are one of the four major fruits in the world, as far as China is concerned, the southern citrus and the northern apple, these two fruits are planted in a very large area, much higher than other fruits, and are also the main consumption fruits, and on the whole, apple consumption has not decreased." Li Linguang, chief researcher of the apple team of the Institute of Pomology of the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told a reporter from CCTV.
According to the 2022 China Apple Industry Development Report, China, the European Union, the United States, Turkey, India and Iran account for more than 85% of the world's total apple production. Among them, China's apple output still ranks first in the world, with an annual output of 45.973 million tons, accounting for 56.4%; This was followed by the European Union, with 11.877 million tonnes of apples in the 2021/22 season, accounting for 14.6%.
It is worth noting that according to the statistics of the national apple industry technology system, the national apple planting area in 2022 will be 30 million mu, a decrease of 4.22% from 31.3212 million mu in 2021, and the planting area will decrease, but the output will increase steadily.
Liang Xuemei, an apple chain technology expert in Sinochem's agricultural MAP economic business, told reporters that the secret of the increase in the output of apples in mainland China is that it is "scientific and reasonable, and adapts measures to local conditions". She explains that "local conditions" refers to the variety and region of the apple, which are innate factors that determine the upper limits of yield and quality. "Scientific and reasonable" refers to the determination of innate factors, through irrigation, fertilization, plant protection, horticultural management, harvest and post-harvest management of the five elements, with a more scientific management way, to help the apple infinitely close to its best yield and quality.
Apples don't taste as good as they used to be?
"Now that the standard of living has improved, the transportation is also convenient, and people have more choices for fruit consumption. Over the years, the flavor and texture of apples have generally changed somewhat, but not much. Li Linguang said.
However, in Li Linguang's view, the quality of apples has declined to a certain extent in recent years, and the use of organic fertilizer has decreased or is a major reason. "Nowadays, people over the age of 60 are generally working in the orchard, and the staff is older and has limited manpower. The disadvantage of organic fertilizer is that it is used in large amounts, requires more labor, and many orchards cannot be dry, so orchards use more chemical fertilizers. ”
According to the data of the China Apple Industry Association, the industrial team engaged in fruit production in mainland China tends to age, with an average age of 55 years old and over 65 years old, accounting for nearly 70%, and the lack of successors in the industrial team is relatively common. In the eyes of industry insiders, this is not only a huge challenge for the development of Apple's industry, but also a major opportunity for industrial transformation and upgrading, quality and efficiency.
"Everyone's impression of apples may be different, I am a post-90s generation, and I remember eating apples when I was a child, although most of them were rotten, but they had a strong fruity aroma. In contrast, today's apples, although they look and color far beyond what they used to be, do not seem to have the taste of apples that they tasted when they were children. Yang Kun, the technical director of Baiguo Yuan's Liangzhi apple, believes that the fruit tree is a very complex living system, and the principle of chemical fertilizer only analyzes and meets some of its nutrient needs from an industrial point of view, and many nutrient factors that cannot even be named can only be extracted from the organic matter of the fruit tree itself, so as to meet the normal growth and development process and quality formation. Yang Kun believes that long-term fertilizer input will make the physical and chemical properties of the soil worse and worse, and once the soil fertility declines, it will be more difficult to pursue the quality of fruits, which is worth paying attention to.
This point of view is also shared by Liu Han, the founder of "Fruit Watch": "Some of the points discussed by netizens, apples do not have 'fruit tension' and the like, I have also seen that the current apples are not as delicious as the apples of the 50s, mainly because the soil organic matter content is insufficient, and some orchards use chemical fertilizers and herbicides to increase production and reduce labor costs." ”
At the same time, Yang Kun also mentioned that precipitation and climate have a significant impact on apples, and he observed that in recent years, the precipitation in the main apple producing areas has been high year after year, and it is in the middle and late stages of apple growth. At this stage, apples are at a critical time for sweetening and changing color, and excessive rain will cause the fruit to have a high moisture content, diluted sugars, and reduce sweetness. If it rains and there is not enough sunlight, the photosynthesis of the fruit trees will be greatly weakened, and the quality of the year will be affected.
A new cycle of apple varieties is about to begin
In the long run, consumers' pickiness about Apple may be an unavoidable problem.
Since the eighties and nineties of the last century, the mainland began to grow apples on a large scale, and the annual output has risen rapidly from more than 10 million tons to more than 30 million or 40 million tons. Li Linguang reminded that for fruit trees, 30 years is just a cycle, with the increase of fruit tree age, the yield and quality of fruit will decline, Fuji apples in the country large-scale promotion is now about 30 years, facing renewal.
"The peel is red and festive, the ratio of sugar and acid is also in line with the preferences of the Chinese people, and it is resistant to storage." Talking about the degree of promotion of Fuji apples in China in the past few decades, Zhang Kun said that at present, red Fuji occupies 65%-70% of all apple categories in the market, and the adaptability of apples is very strong. Therefore, consumers often buy what looks like the same red Fuji, but has different performances in appearance and internal quality.
Although the results of the exploration of new apple varieties by scientific research institutions have been repeatedly reported, it will take a long time for the consumer market to buy these new varieties. Li Linguang said, "The effective period for promoting a new apple variety is 10-15 years, it takes 3-5 years to start bearing fruit, it takes 8-10 years to form a stable yield, and it takes 20-30 years for a new variety to be marketed on a large scale." Therefore, some of the new varieties of apples that are being developed now may take a decade or two before they are universally available. ”
However, consumers' choice of apples is not limited to Fuji, Yang Kun told reporters that based on the high proportion of red Fuji varieties, the relevant new varieties of research units have been trying to use yellow, green to guide and share it, and have a certain effect, such as Venus gold, Ruixue and other cultivation traits are good, good quality, in the country has a fairly good promotion area.
In Yang Kun's view, it is more important to establish a good production and marketing relationship than breeding and research and development - growers are getting to know more and more about fruit trees, and consumers are looking for delicious and nutritious fruits rather than focusing on appearance. For example, he said, only a very small number of countries in the world, including China, still maintain the habit of bagging cultivation. "The fully shading bagged apple does have delicate skin, high redness, bright and good-looking, but the fruit has been in a closed and dark microenvironment for a long time, and its normal tissue metabolism and nutrient accumulation process have been changed. It is understood that many fruit farmers have begun to try to use translucent bags to grow apples in a more ecological way.
The market has responded. At the beginning of 2023, the China Apple Industry Association counted the types of apples that sell faster in the market, including apples that are planted ecologically, "All apples that are planted ecologically, do not use chemical fertilizers, do not use herbicides, and apply biological fertilizers are delicious, good-looking, and the fruit does not fade, and they sell faster and better." ”
Yang Yi, president of the China Apple Industry Association, pointed out in the series of articles on "Helping the High-quality Development of the Apple Industry" that with the development of the domestic economy, people's income has increased and their consumption capacity has improved, and people have become more picky about food choices and put forward clearer requirements for high-quality, high-quality, and high-nutritional value products. These new changes make it an inevitable choice for the production of apple products to develop into new varieties, new categories, high quality and branded apple industry. At the same time, these new changes have forced the apple industry to industrialize development, large-scale operation, modern management, and personalized service, bringing new opportunities for fruit production.
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