Qixia Apple： Technology Promotes Industrial Transformation
Exhibition of Qixia Apple Art Theme Works.
Baidu
"At dawn, there is Danxia flowing down, shining on the city." This is Qixia City, Yantai, which is located in the northeast of Shandong Peninsula. As the "Apple Capital of China" and "Apple City of the World", Qixia City is famous at home and abroad for its apple planting history of more than 130 years, planting area of 1.28 million mu and annual output of more than 2.2 billion kilograms of apples.
In the midsummer, the 8th National Brand Agro-business Development Conference and Rural Revitalization Site Observation Meeting was held in Qixia City. Our reporter took this meeting as an opportunity to interview the city’s efforts to develop the apple industry and promote the transformation of the apple industry with the support of science and technology.
Managing the root of thick planting of land
Standing on a high platform in front of Beiluotang Village Committee in Zangjiazhuang Town, I lifted my eyes and looked up. Under the bright sunshine, rows of neat apple trees extended along the fields, connecting with the rolling hills in the distance, and sketching a smart skyline. Standing beside the reporter is a dark-skinned man, in his early forties, simple and honest. He is Li Sen, secretary of the Party branch of the village. He told reporters that this big orchard seems to be no different from others except that it is connected into pieces and has a large scale. Actually, the mystery is the soil under your feet.
China apples see Yantai, Yantai apples see Qixia. As the core apple producing area in Yantai, the quality of Qixia apples is widely praised and well-known at home and abroad, to a great extent, thanks to its unique climatic environment, especially in the "golden" zone of apple cultivation at 37 north latitude. However, due to long-term planting and unreasonable fertilization, soil acidification and hardening are serious, apple roots are seriously affected by soil-borne diseases, the density of absorbed roots is low, and the absorption capacity is weak, which leads to the decrease of excellent fruit rate and poor surface gloss of peel, and the sustainable development of apple industry is facing challenges.
Li Sen said that in recent years, a large number of apple planting bases in Qixia City, including the land belonging to Beiluo tangcun, have undergone soil improvement and treatment. Relying on the technology of Beijing Jiabowen Biotechnology Co., Ltd., the soil in fruit area was analyzed and diagnosed, and a series of scientific control measures were taken, including optimizing the safe and high-quality organic resources such as vermicelli leftovers and cassava flour produced in local and surrounding areas, adopting the patented technology of National Technological Invention Award to efficiently transform organic waste resources, and building a three-stage fertilizer distribution system for soil improvement based on local large-scale organic fertilizer plants to realize accurate fertilizer distribution and production for soil improvement. After monitoring and improvement, the physical, chemical, biological and safety indexes of the soil have been greatly improved, more earthworms have appeared, the soil quality is obviously loose, acidification is obviously improved, the ability of fertilizer conservation and supply is improved, and the soil ecosystem is healthier and more balanced.
Introduce improved varieties and update them.
"Next year is the fourth year. When you come again, this orchard will be full of fruits. In fact, some trees have already borne fruit this year, and there will be some harvest. " Li Sen said, pointing to several trees nearby. It turns out that not only the soil here has been transformed, but also the apple trees have been upgraded.
The aging of fruit trees is one of the main problems faced by the apple industry in Qixia. According to statistics, 60%-70% of the orchards in this area are 25-30 years old, which belongs to "extended service". The quality of some fruits has declined, and the yield per unit area has declined, which is in urgent need of upgrading. In order to fundamentally solve the above problems and effectively improve the quality of seedlings, Qixia City and Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry jointly invested 200 million yuan to set up an agricultural science and technology company to cultivate virus-free apple seedlings with strong disease resistance and planted them on a large scale. In 2018, 1.16 million excellent new varieties, including American G-series anti-continuous cropping virus-free seedlings, M9T337 dwarf self-rootstock apple seedlings, Dutch Asentec and Fubrix, were planted on the transferred 11,300 mu of land.
Improved varieties are the guarantee of producing high-quality fruits, and Qixia’s pursuit of improved varieties of apples is impressive. In the exhibition hall of Yantai Quanyuan Food Co., Ltd., a leading local apple enterprise, I saw all kinds of apples on display, especially those imported from Japan, the United States and European countries, and learned the quality characteristics of all kinds. Qixia, according to market demand and with the help of modern seed science and technology, grows high-quality apples that are most favored by consumers.
Wisdom orchard Mengyuan Qixia
The huge LCD screen occupies almost the whole wall, with "meteorological parameters" and "soil parameters" on the upper left of the screen, and the form of temperature change curve in the coming week is intuitive and clear. The monitoring data of water and fertilizer flow are accurate to two decimal places and change from time to time; The monitoring value of water and fertilizer use time is displayed in blue histogram. At the top of the center of the screen, "Dou Yun Apple Big Data Management Platform" is written impressively, and below it is a map of Qixia City, which is marked into different blocks with colors such as blue, light green, dark green and yellow. The right side of the map shows the planting area and quantity of apple trees, the types of fruit seedlings and the survival rate in various township plots. At the bottom of the middle of the screen and on the far right, it shows the image data taken by drones in recent days. Click on the screen to play it directly.
This is what our reporter saw in the lobby on the first floor of Qixia Modern Agricultural Industrial Park. This tall big data management platform was jointly developed by Qixia City and Beijing Jiufang Technology Company, which integrated relevant information and made it clear at a glance, which also subverted people’s impression of traditional planting. Qixia Modern Agricultural Industrial Park comprehensively uses modern information technology, transmits relevant data to the management platform from time to time through temperature and humidity sensors and professional monitoring equipment such as water, fertilizer and soil, and regularly surveys and monitors the growth of apple trees in a large area through aerial photography of unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite remote sensing technology, achieving three-dimensional full coverage.
Behind the big data management platform of Guoduyun is a "modern farmer" who has modern information technology capabilities, is well versed in apple planting technology, and is proficient in modern agricultural machinery and tools, and understands the way of online e-commerce marketing of agricultural products. Among them, there are authentic peasant children like Li Sen who have returned from other places to start businesses, technicians from professional companies such as Beijing Jiabowen Biotechnology Co., Ltd., and scientific and technological experts from Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences and China Agricultural University. Everyone gathered in Qixia to build an "Apple Dream" with one heart and one mind.