Small Zanthoxylum bungeanum trees become a big industry to become rich

In the past few days, Zhou Youhuale of Xiuzhuang Village, Xianfeng Town, Jiangjin District, Chongqing, has bloomed: "this year, the output of pepper is high, and the purchase market is good. My family can earn more than 100,000 yuan on 0.53 hectares of land."

This year, Jiangjin region ushered in a bumper harvest of 33300 hectares of pepper. Like Zhou Youhua, more than 100,000 pepper farmers in Jiangjin have tasted the benefits.

Speaking of the good harvest of Zanthoxylum bungeanum, pepper farmers are most grateful to one person, that is Chen Xiuqiang, president of Jiangjin Zanthoxylum bungeanum Industry Association.

More than a decade ago, Chen Xiuqiang developed the technique of pruning and shaping pruning of prickly ash trees. First, 20 prickly ash trees were selected for experimental demonstration in Zhou Youhua's pepper garden. "in the past, our idea was that the bigger the prickly ash tree, the better. If you cut off all the branches, wouldn't you want to reduce the yield of prickly ash?" Zhou Youhua recalled that at that time, pepper farmers did not agree to participate in Chen Xiuqiang's experiment for fear of killing their pepper trees. "as a result, in the second year, the output of those 20 prickly ash trees was much higher than in previous years."

Pepper farmers have come to learn from the experience. While Chen Xiuqiang teaches the technology, he continues to improve the technology through experiments to improve the quality and output of Jiangjin pepper. He successively explored and improved new techniques such as grafting of Zanthoxylum bungeanum, dwarfing and dense planting, prevention and control of diseases and pests, balanced fertilization, retraction of main branches, and transformation of aging trees, so that the fruit hanging period of Zanthoxylum bungeanum was shortened from three years to one and a half years, and the per unit yield was also increased from 300 to 500 jin to 400 kg to 7500 kg.

In order to popularize these technological achievements, the Zanthoxylum bungeanum Association organized experts and technicians to go to the grass-roots level to hold technical lectures and on-site demonstrations, established 28 demonstration bases for the popularization of science and technology, and developed 5100 scientific and technological demonstration households. drive more farmers to plant pepper and plant pepper well. At present, the area of Zanthoxylum bungeanum in Jiangjin District has reached 33300 hectares, with an annual output of nearly 200000 tons.

With such a large output of pepper, how can it become a real income? With the support of Jiangjin District Science and Technology Association, Zanthoxylum bungeanum Association actively expand social service functions, matchmaking, the introduction of businessmen, the organization of production and marketing docking, to help pepper farmers find a market.

"in conjunction with the Zanthoxylum bungeanum processing plant, we kill enzymes and refrigerate the fresh pepper picked by farmers, so that the fresh pepper, which used to be only about two months a year, can now be supplied all year round, which not only prolongs the sales period of pepper, but also increases the income of farmers." "We have also built an e-commerce platform to sell our products online," Chen Xiuqiang said. Now Jiangjin Zanthoxylum bungeanum does not worry about the market. "

Today, the annual output value of Jiangjin pepper reaches more than 1 billion yuan. The "planting" of small pepper trees has become a big industry to get rich, and the pockets of pepper farmers have been bulging up. Zijing Village, Jiaping Town, used to be a municipal poor village, but now by planting pepper, the whole village has been lifted out of poverty and become rich.

Zhou Youhua, who was the first to receive technical guidance at that time, also used the money earned from growing pepper to buy a house in the city. When he was busy, he lived in the countryside to take care of prickly ash trees, and in his spare time he went to live in the city and lived an "amphibious" life. Years of planting experience and training experience also made him a "soil expert" in pepper planting. In recent years, he is often invited to various places to guide the cultivation of pepper. "Last year I traveled to several provinces, and I could earn NT $3,000 or NT $5,000 per trip!" As soon as he sold the pepper in the field, Zhou Youhua bought a ticket and was ready to talk about his "planting classics".

Chen Xiuqiang was also not idle. He was selected as the representative of the Ninth CPC National Congress of the China Science and Technology Association and won the title of "Advanced Leader of Science Popularization and Huinong Xing Village". "Jiangjin's current Zanthoxylum bungeanum variety 'Jiuyeqing' has been planted for many years and is close to decline. We have cultivated a new variety through grafting and hybridization experiments." Chen Xiuqiang said that the new varieties have stronger disease resistance, simpler cultivation and management, and the per unit yield is 250 kg more than the existing varieties. "We are going to start the promotion of new varieties at the end of the year, so that pepper farmers have a wider and wider way to get rich!"