At present, it is the time for early-maturing lychees to go on the market, but Guangdong, the main lychee producing area in the country, has encountered multiple rounds of heavy rainfall and extreme weather.
In recent years, the planting area of litchi in Guangdong has stabilized at about 4 million mu, accounting for more than 50% of the country's output. With the advent of the "Super Year", how should the litchi farmers in the Pearl River Delta spend this "rare summer"?
In the latest round of extreme weather, the most severely affected areas include Zengcheng, Guangzhou, known as the "hometown of China's lychees", how to keep the only remaining fruit on the branches, a "battle to defend" the branches is imminent.
Lychee production is reduced
While people are still hotly discussing whether "lychee freedom" can be achieved this year, many places in Guangdong have experienced another heavy rain. After the heavy rain, a team of agricultural experts set off from the city early in the morning to the lychee orchard in Zengcheng, Guangzhou. It is the area most affected by successive rounds of rainfall and extreme weather, and it is also one of the main lychee producing areas in Guangdong.
Li Qiang, senior agronomist of Guangdong Provincial Agricultural Technology Extension Center: We have seen it several times, and a small batch of small fruits of lychee have been knocked out. The control of (lychee) pests and diseases is very important, and we will face a series of problems such as dragon boat water in the future.
When there is a problem in the planting of peasant households, the province sends experts and local agricultural technology commissioners to the fields to study and judge, which is the method that Guangdong has been insisting on solving agricultural problems in recent years. After an hour-and-a-half-hour drive from downtown Guangzhou, the first person I saw was not the owner of the orchard, but Liao Meijing, an agricultural technology commissioner stationed in Zengcheng.
Liao Meijing's lychee orchard covers an area of more than 600 acres, although these fruit trees are still in the fruit-setting period, but just by these sparse branches, a large number of stumps and dead leaves that have been knocked down by rain and hail, people can deduce the situation of this year's lychee harvest in advance. According to Liao Meijing, it is expected that this year's output here will be 60% less than last year.
It's hard to be a lit farmer
Liu Donglin, the owner of the orchard, seized the opportunity between the rain stops and got busy under the guidance of Liao Meijing.
Four years ago, Liu Donglin, a university student majoring in tourism, plunged back to this lychee orchard that he had been running since his grandfather's generation with enthusiasm. It was here that he planted his first lychee tree, and it took 4 years for lychee seedlings to bear fruit from planting, which was the first year of looking forward to his own bumper harvest, but he encountered a "super small year" that even his ancestors had never encountered.
Many of these dead branches that have been damaged by hail still have small fruits that have not yet grown, and many more are branches that have been blown off by wind and rain and gradually dried up.
Liu Donglin, a litinologist: This is what I planted when I first came back, and when it bloomed this year, it was not low, and it was low when it should be high, so it affected fruit set, and the flowering rate was not high.
The battle to protect the "li" has not stopped
The son doesn't talk much, but his father Liu Hanhui seems very optimistic. 36 years ago, Liu Hanhui also followed his father and planted lychee trees on this mountain. Today, this lush fruit grove carries the heavy expectations and hopes of him and his father.
Therefore, when his son chose to come back to help his father manage the orchard and become a new farmer after graduating from college, he did not object, and even named the orchard after his son.
Liu Hanhui quickly recognized the first lychee tree he planted 36 years ago, and this year, this lychee tree has also suffered a lot of damage.
Last year, the flowering period suffered from "warm winter" and "cold spring", and now it has continued to rain, and this battle to protect "li" in extreme weather has not stopped.
In this long rainy season, everyone is trying to find a way, for the Liu family father and son and scientific research and agricultural technicians, the most important thing at the moment is to try to protect the fruits hanging on the branches to the greatest extent, so that the grains will not be harvested.
Walking in the orchard, although you can occasionally catch a glimpse of some remnant branches left by heavy rain and hail in the corner, the young lychee fruits on the branches that are being bathed in the sun make people still look forward to the "sweetness" of this summer.
Liu Hanhui told reporters that the past few years have been bumper harvests, and it is not all bad to meet Xiao Nian, at least he can help his son gain knowledge, how to survive Xiao Nian, and it is also the experience that a qualified Li farmer should have.
Source: CCTV