Reporter: Zhang Qi, Yang Fan, Li Nannan, Zhong Jianjun, Du Xiaodan.
What did the three-year "Apple Revolution" bring?The reporter visited the main apple producing areas in Yantai, and worked with many fruit farmers and apple industry practitioners to calculate the harvest account, innovation account and development account.
A "personal harvest account":
The old orchard has tripled its income after renovation.
After the transformation of the old orchard, more than 80% of the orchard is planted with new varieties, this year's apple purchase is particularly high, and good striped fruit is sold for seven or eight yuan per catty. After this year's apple harvest season, Pan Shilong, a fruit farmer in Panjia Village, Keluo, Songshan Street, Qixia, stretched his brows and couldn't close his mouth.
The 62-year-old has been growing apples for more than 40 years since he was 18 years old. "At first, I planted Kokuniko, then I changed to Red Fuji, and then I planted new varieties of Red Fuji. Pan Shilong, who has grown apples all his life, is full of pride in his tone, and with the money he earns from selling apples, he has gained many "firsts" in the village.
When he saw that the apples of the old fruit trees could not be sold, he resolutely decided to "cut the roots and change the seeds" and began to renovate the old orchard. "I started renovating the old orchard in 2017, and now more than 80% of the orchard is planted with new apple varieties. ”
If you don't change it, you can't do it, if you don't follow the situation, it's easy to suffer. Pan Shilong said that although the income in the first two years after the transformation has indeed decreased, as the new fruit trees enter the full fruit period, the apple not only has a good appearance and good fruit shape, but also improves the quality of the fruit. More than 80% of this year's fruit is high-quality.
During the apple harvest season, Pan Shilong (left) is grading the apples that have been picked. (Photo by reporter Lu Qi).
Before the old orchard was renovated, it earned 40,000 or 50,000 yuan a year. Pan Shilong said, "After the renovation of the old orchard, the net income reached more than 150,000 yuan after removing the cost, which was twice as high as before the transformation!”
In 2019, Liu Luqiang, the technical director of Yantai Hongguoguo Family Farm, opened a knife to his own apple orchard and ruthlessly transformed the fruit trees in the 16-acre orchard. After interlacing, the efficiency increased instead of decreasing, and the benefit increased by more than 20%. "In fact, most of the profits of apples depend on good fruits, and in the past, the densely planted orchards had high yields, and most of the apples produced were low-end apples, and there was not much profit. ”
The row spacing of 8 meters is suitable for mechanized operations, and the yield per mu is increased from 7,000 catties to 9,000 catties in the case of reduced trees. Liu Luqiang said that the effect of interlacing is beyond imagination, after the first year of transformation, the income has decreased, to the second year the benefit is flat, and the third year is more than 20% higher than the old orchard. The quality of apples has been greatly improved, and the quality of high-quality fruits has reached 85%, which is more than 10% higher than before the transformation.
In the past three years, Yantai has transformed a total of 1.32 million acres of old apple orchards, and cut down 20 acres of old and new ones50,000 acres. Compared with 2019, the area of old orchards in the city decreased by 315. Middle-aged orchards increased by 75%, and the orchards in the peak fruiting period increased by 122%, the age structure of fruit trees is becoming more and more optimized.
A "Variety Innovation Account":
The number of registered apple varieties is "three points of the world".
In the traditional apple planting, it is generally three years to bear fruit, four years to initially form the output, five years to enter the harvest period, a longer return cycle to reduce the driving force of the apple industry transformation and upgrading. Ruan Shuxing, deputy secretary-general of the China Apple Industry Association and president of the Shandong Apple Industry Association, said, "An early harvest means an early harvest, which can effectively shorten the return on investment cycle of orchards, and then attract more fruit farmers and social capital to participate in the transformation and upgrading of the apple industry." ”
New varieties are the primary productive force for the development of the fruit industry. In recent years, the face of apple varieties is relatively simple.
1. The current situation that the planting area of Red Fuji once exceeded 80%, Yantai is guided by consumer demand and stepped up the research and development of new apple varieties and new rootstocks, forming a variety structure of "morning, noon and evening, red, yellow and green, sweet and crispy". In Yantai, more than 90% of the orchards renovated by high replacement heads have been replanted with yellow-green varieties such as "Venus**" and "Wanglin", more than 50% of the newly planted orchards have been planted with yellow-green varieties, and the planting area of new varieties such as "Venus**", "Wanglin" and "Mingyue" has increased by 4 times, and the yield has increased by 22 times. The trend of apple varieties from the original red Fuji "one dominant" to diversified development has emerged, and the proportion of traditional "Fuji" planting area has dropped to 2092, the proportion of the area of the excellent "Fuji" increased to 636％。At the same time, the planting area of late-maturing varieties decreased by 17%, and the "early, noon and late"** was more balanced.
Wang Pengji, secretary of the Party branch of Xiaojiakuo Village, Tangjiabo Town, Qixia City, said that the village has now established a Qixia Xiaoxiao Fruit and Vegetable Professional Cooperative to manage more than 1,200 acres of orchards in a unified manner.
The rational layout of apple varieties benefits from the advantages of seedling research and development. In the past three years, Yantai has built a domestic first-class apple detoxification seedling breeding center, apple intelligent seedling training greenhouse and apple detoxification ear garden, with an annual output of more than 20 million detoxified seedlings, and an existing high-quality apple seedling breeding base50,000 acres, with an annual output of 55 million seedlings, and a national market share of 60%. The city has 80 apple varieties registered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, accounting for 1 3 in the country, and has achieved the variety advantage of "three points of the world" in the number of registrations.
In the greenhouse of Yantai Shilin Agricultural Science and Technology, the lush apple seedlings are growing gratifyingly. (Photo by reporter Zhong Jianjun).
Through the application of new technologies and concepts such as variety innovation, technological innovation, product innovation, and equipment innovation, the area of low-effect parks in the city has decreased, but the output has maintained stable growth and the production capacity has been effectively improved. According to statistics, the city's apple area has been adjusted from 2.8 million mu in the 2019 season to 2.48 million mu in the 2022 season, and the yield has increased from 199 tons of acres ** to 225 tons of acres.
An "industrial advantage account":
Break through the first production, "one after another".
Field with workshop. In the Qilu Quanyuan ** chain *** apple sorting and packaging workshop, cleaning, sorting, packaging, round and red apples from Qixia to the world market.
On November 17, in the Qixia Qilu Quanyuan **chain*** sorting and packaging workshop, the apples were cleaned and transported to the sorting machine. (Photo by reporter Zhong Jianjun).
The ones that went in were fresh apples, and the ones that came out were apple crisps. "Walking into a high-standard production workshop of Quanyuan Company, you can witness the whole process of an apple from fresh fruit to crisp chips. Jiang Jing, deputy general manager of Qilu Quanyuan Chain, said that the raw materials here are all locally produced high-quality apples, and the cleaned apples are peeled, cored and sliced, and then air-dried through hot air drying equipment, and then entered the core vacuum differential pressure puffing tank. Here, the apple slices are dehydrated twice for 5-6 hours. 15 catties of fresh fruit can eventually produce 1 catty of apple crisps. Apple chips retain 95% of the nutrients of fresh fruit and are processed without any coloring or additives, making them popular among children and young adults.
Jiang Yanquan, chairman of Qilu Quanyuan**chain***, pointed to a pack of apple chips and said, "Like this pack of crisps, ** is about 20 times more than fresh fruit." ”
Yantai people have a special affection for apples. Gao Yanjin, deputy secretary-general of the Yantai Municipal Party Committee and director of the Municipal Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, said that the apple industry occupies an important position in the food industry chain of 16 important industrial chains in Yantai City. Yantai proposed to promote rural revitalization and implement the "1+6" characteristic industrial cluster cultivation project. Among them, "1" refers to Yantai Apple's 100 billion-level national advantageous and characteristic industrial cluster.
Starting from planting, after years of accumulation, the apple industry chain in Yantai City has been continuously extended. On the basis of breaking through the first production, the apple industry focuses on "successively" and "extending both ends", and deeply integrates with deep processing, leisure and tourism, e-commerce and other industries. More than 1,000 fruit storage and processing enterprises such as Defeng, as well as more than 1,500 apple production and processing cooperatives, have built 1,348 fruit storage warehouses, with a storage capacity of 3.42 million tons, the city's annual apple processing capacity of more than 4 million tons, pectin production and flavor extraction technology is leading in the world, and has developed more than 100 kinds of deep processing products such as pectin, flavor, seed oil, enzyme, etc., and 22 leading fruit enterprises with sales revenue of more than 100 million yuan.
As the No. 1 brand in China's fruit industry, the "2022 Fruit Regional Public Brand Value Report" released in August this year shows that the brand value of Yantai apples has reached 1529.4 billion yuan, ranking first in the list of regional public brand value of China's fruits for 14 consecutive years.
One industry is prosperous, and all industries are prosperous. Three years of "Apple Revolution", three "clear accounts", not only personal "income account", but also industrial "advantage account";It is not only the current "economic account", but also the long-term "development account". The bills are clear, and this "harvest account" is written on paper, and it is written on the hearts of every fruit farmer.