Cao Mengyang: the "Farmer in the Air" in Dongguan

The roof of Dongguan Nancheng New Base Science and Technology Park is the roof farm of Jia Ecological Agriculture Technology Co., Ltd. Under the sun, the breeze blew, and the unique aroma of fruits and vegetables was intoxicating. At a glance, dozens of vegetables are thriving in nearly a thousand planting boxes. The roof of more than 2000 square meters is lush and idyllic. The owner of the rooftop farm was Cao Mengyang. This was his tenth year in Dongguan. He used to have a stable job in a public institution, but now he is an urban farmer, promoting the rooftop vegetable growing model. He said he wanted all city people to realize their idyllic dream of going upstairs to the countryside.

"Dangerous attempt" under the unlimited business opportunities of idyllic dream

Cao Mengyang planted vegetables on the roof, all due to an accident. Once when he was on a business trip, he saw the city under the porthole and thought,"If only the roof of the city was green!" Cao Mengyang thought, there are so many idle roofs in the city, why not plant organic vegetables on the roofs, so that everyone can have their own private vegetable garden.

After investigation, Cao Mengyang found that the pace of life in the city is fast, and many people are eager to return to nature and have their own vegetable garden. In addition, many parts of the country have introduced roof greening subsidy system, among which Beijing subsidy is 100~150 yuan/square meter, Wuhan, Jinan, Xi'an and other cities have begun to promote roof greening, roof farm is the combination of the two unlimited business opportunities. This strengthened his thoughts. At the beginning of 2014, Cao Mengyang resigned from his stable job and started his own entrepreneurial process. Rent an office, register a company, set up a team, after a busy month, the company is ready.

In order to promote and sell the roof vegetable planting model, Cao Mengyang constantly looks for negotiations, but also has his own customers. Everything developed according to the predetermined track, but no one expected that a few months later customer feedback once let him fall to the bottom.

Once, Cao Mengyang went to a customer's roof, but received a pile of complaints from customers,"The seedlings planted will turn yellow and die in a few days, and those that survive will also be sick and wilted. If they don't water for three or two days, the planting substrate will dry up. Watering takes too much time..." Faced with such feedback, Cao Mengyang began to realize that this road could not go on. In fact, in just one year, he lost more than 300,000 yuan, and the combined planting boxes and planting substrates produced became waste products overnight.

Change him into a university research base.

Before New Year's Eve in 2015, Cao Mengyang decided to suspend the company's operations. Almost all his friends urged him to quit and find another job. Continue dreaming or face reality? Cao Mengyang did not sleep for several days and nights. His reflection concluded that the combination of planting boxes and substrates and agricultural technology needed to be improved, and the project itself had no problems.

The next day, he went to the scientific research base of South China Agricultural University in Zengcheng and spent the Spring Festival with the remaining technicians at the base. As soon as the Spring Festival passed, the base became busy. He turned the soil, leveled the ridge, watered, sowed, raised seedlings, weeded, disinsected, and adjusted the seedlings... scrambling to do the most tiring work, modestly consulted teachers and technicians, and did not forget to record every detail.

I remember one night, the teacher who studied the biological pest control technology of plant extract asked the students to go to the vegetable field to do pest control experiments. The teacher asked the students to stay in the vegetable field and spray the extract only when the insects were most active. At night, the mosquito bites in the vegetable fields were painful and itchy. Several students couldn't stand spraying a little and left. Cao Mengyang squatted with a flashlight until 3 a.m. until the insects appeared frequently. He was bitten by many big bags. He was the only student who recorded the most detailed data.

Later, Cao Mengyang free to consult the teacher, one to two, the teacher taught him a lot of skills. He learned to prepare "insect medicine" are neem, derris hair, mint, flavescent sophora root and other plants decocted liquid, both insect and health. Through nearly a year of study, Cao Mengyang said with a smile that he seemed to have become an expert. He said that he knew the importance of agricultural planting technology only after going deep. "The previous approach now seems too childish, especially for rooftop farming. Unlike field farming, roof farming is far from nature and requires strict requirements for planting facilities, soil formulations, irrigation systems, and the choice of vegetable habits." Cao Mengyang deeply felt that he was immature when he started growing vegetables.

Fully automatic. One intake pipe irrigates vegetables.

Cao Mengyang said he can manage more than 2000 square meters of rooftop farms in just two hours a day.

See the reporter some surprised, He pointed to the planting box said, Now independently developed planting box using light imported plastic materials, Introduce automatic water inlet and outlet design principle, Combined with reverse osmosis technology, Let the planting box and improved formula planting substrate organic combination together. In this way, the vegetables grown can drink as much water as they need, completely automated, and a single intake pipe can automatically irrigate the vegetables of an entire rooftop farm.

Of course, if you want to experience labor, as long as you close the inlet pipe, you can directly water the vegetables with the external pipe, plus practical vegetable planting management technology, one person can easily do it.

Using Internet technology, Cao Mengyang's rooftop farm also realizes remote control. Wherever there is a network, the irrigation system can be controlled in real time through mobile phones, and video can monitor vegetable growth.

Start again for the dream of idyllic life

After mastering certain skills, Cao Mengyang restarted his "Roof Farm Project". In his view, there are hundreds of thousands of primary and secondary schools and kindergartens in China alone, and campus roof farms are the best second classroom for students to learn agricultural knowledge, experience labor, understand nature and feel the process of plant growth. In addition, 90% of urban roofs in the country are idle. Cao Mengyang said that he is trying to replicate successful roof farms to thousands of households. Whether they are balcony vegetables or roof farms, they have the ability to provide a complete set of solutions, so that every urban person who likes rural life can realize his idyllic dream of going upstairs to the countryside.