Wu Zisheng: "Earth Expert" in the Eyes of Date Farmers

Reporter Ma Aiping

????■ Precision poverty alleviation technology first

Wujiamao Village is close to the coast of the Yellow River. It is a famous jujube professional village in Jiaxian County, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province. All 1600 mu cultivated land in the village is covered by jujube forest. The per capita jujube income in normal years reaches more than 5000 yuan.

"Wu Zisheng, 54 years old, is willing to endure hardship and specialized research. He is our 'local expert'. He leads farmers to innovate jujube production technology, so that the jujube production in Wujiamao and surrounding villages can stand alone and have a bumper harvest. He takes the lead in establishing jujube cooperatives to help our jujube farmers increase their income and become rich." Villagers commented on Wu Zisheng, secretary of the Party branch of Wujiamao Village.

Spring and summer pest increase difficult to bear fruit, autumn rainy continuous easy to crack fruit mildew rot, so that jujube farmers headache. In early spring, jujube leaves have just sprouted, and a new local pest, green blind Chinese toon, is ready to go. Wu Zisheng discovered this disaster. He selected suitable pesticides and spraying methods to demonstrate prevention and control in time, and taught the masses prevention and control techniques door-to-door. After autumn, Jiaxian jujube, which suffered from diseases and pests, reduced production or even lost harvest in a large area, while Wujiamao Village and surrounding villages under Wu Zisheng's guidance obtained a bumper harvest.

Abnormal spring and summer weather, rampant diseases and insect pests, Jiaxian jujube production in large areas. Wu Zisheng crouched in the jujube garden day and night, dealt with successive natural disasters with original pruning, pest control and fertilization techniques, and informed the surrounding people in time from village to village, and finally defeated various disasters. The cracking rate of jujube in Wujiamao and surrounding villages is also much lower than that in other areas, with an average yield of more than 1200 jin per mu.

"In 2015, Wu Zisheng researched and innovated the jujube high-yield management technology of reducing tree shape, thinning branches and testing yield pruning, and transformed the old jujube garden. The yield of red dates increased from 30% to 70%, and the output value tripled." The staff of Jiaxian Science and Technology Bureau said that the technology was named "Strong Height Reduction Shaping" and won the 2015 Yulin City Science and Technology Achievement Award. The jujube district of Jiaxian County vigorously promoted the technology and transformed 40,000 mu of red dates throughout the year.

The decentralized operation mode with households as units restricts the quality and benefit of jujube industry. In 2007, Wu Zisheng took the lead in establishing Jiaxian Millennium Jujube Garden Jujube Cooperative and registered the brand of "Millennium Jujube Oil".

The cooperative consists of more than 240 jujube farmers in the village and neighboring villages. It carries out unified management and comprehensive services for all links of jujube production, processing and marketing, carries out technical experiments such as "strong height reduction and shaping" and greenhouse jujube, uniformly packages jujube products, unifies standards, registers unified brands, formulates unified guidance prices, creates organic dates, and establishes an e-commerce service platform to help jujube farmers sell dates. Also invested in the construction of large-scale oven and refrigeration equipment, using unique technology to produce more than a dozen varieties of jujube products, widely favored by the market, annual processing of jujube up to 3 million kg.

"Driven and served by the cooperative, the jujube produced in Wujiamao and surrounding villages can not only be sold at a good price, but also the jujube farmers have mastered the high-yield technology, helping more than 30 poor households in the cooperative to get rid of poverty." Wu Zisheng was particularly happy to mention getting farmers out of poverty. In the autumn of 2015, the cooperative held Jiaxian Jujube Picking Festival in Wujiamao Village and signed a number of purchase and sales agreements. Millennium jujube garden jujube industry cooperative has become a set of science and technology demonstration, technical training, processing sales, tourism as one of the modern jujube demonstration base.

Wu Zisheng always uses easy-to-understand language and vivid examples to train tens of thousands of cadres and masses. Wu Zisheng also took the initiative to act as a jujube technical service instructor in Jiaxian County, participated in various jujube theory discussion activities, and tirelessly rushed back and forth.

Wu Zisheng has successively won the honorary titles of Yulin City Science and Technology Task Force, Jiaxian Jujube Special Contribution Award, Yulin City Science and Technology Achievement Award, Yulin City Model Worker, etc. But he is still not satisfied,"Let more red dates 'red' up, Let along the yellow broad jujube farmers on the road to prosperity, Is my dream lies." he said.