"Local experts" lead the villagers on the road to prosperity

Entering the hot summer, Xiaolou Town Xijing Village in the field, Mingchi Chinese and foreign black wax gourd to the mature season. One by one oval strong wax gourd hanging on the green seedlings, neat and spectacular. In a melon field with a sign of "wax gourd grafted seedling cultivation demonstration site", the reporter saw what the villagers called "wax gourd king" Zhou Zhitang.

Grafting wax gourd seedlings on the head of pumpkin trees to increase the yield of black wax gourd is a new technology that Zhou Zhitang is currently studying and popularizing. Now that the melon has matured, the new technology seems to be quite effective. Zhou Zhitang couldn't help laughing and squinting while checking the growth of wax gourd.

Zhou Zhitang, a native of Xijing Village, Xiaolou Town, is currently a member of the Party Branch of Xijing Village, Xiaolou Town, the director of the second cooperative, and the chairman of Guangzhou Zengcheng Green Lanzi vegetable Professional Cooperative. As a party member, he loved the agricultural cause, constantly studied and explored, was keen on the application and promotion of agricultural technology, and became an agricultural "local expert" and "planting expert" praised by the villagers. selflessly popularize the planting techniques of crops such as black wax gourd, Zengcheng late cabbage heart and potato, and lead villagers in the west, east and wax garden to the road of getting rich. He was honest and honest, actively participated in the management of village affairs, gave full play to the vanguard and exemplary role of party members with practical actions, and promoted the modernization of the village. Because of his enterprising spirit and selfless dedication, he has successively won the honors of "pioneering and striving for excellence" advanced individual in Xiaolou Town, leader of science popularization in Zengcheng District, Zengcheng District, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, National Labor Model and so on.

Be good at learning to explore the "black wax gourd" to become rich

In 1980, after graduating from high school, Zhou Zhitang went out to work in Nanhai, Foshan. Soon, Zhou Zhitang discovered that there was a village mainly growing wax gourd not far from his work. "at that time, I often went to their fields and asked those farmers about their planting methods. I thought I could try and maybe get good results." In 1990, Zhou Zhitang, who returned to Xijing Village, began to experiment with the "way" of growing wax gourd. However, due to the wrong planting method, good and bad varieties of wax gourd and poor taste of melon meat, the first planted wax gourd ended in low yield and unsalable.

Zhou Zhitang was not discouraged, but confidently he went to Guangzhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Under the guidance and advice of experts, Zhou Zhitang obtained a number of high-quality black-skinned wax gourd. Later, Zhou Zhitang learned from books that the use of artificial pollination can increase crop yield. It made him very excited. "when the wax gourd blossoms, I go to the melon field at more than three o'clock every day to artificially pollinate the wax gourd." Zhou Zhitang said.

A workman is worthy of a man of heart. After many experiments, Zhou Zhitang's black-skinned wax gourd output has increased by more than 50%. Wax gourd is fruity and sweet and is very popular in the market. In 2000, he was selected as an agricultural technician in Xijing Village and began to promote the planting technology of black wax gourd to the villagers. "as a native of Xijing village, I think we should share good things with everyone. It is not enough for a person to be an expert in planting wax gourd. Only when all the villagers in the village become experts in planting wax gourd, can they successfully push the wax gourd to the market and achieve common prosperity."

Since then, Zhou Zhitang actively contacted experts and professors of the Guangzhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences to learn advanced planting techniques, held free agrotechnical training courses for villagers and provided field technical services for farmers. With his drive and help, more than 300 households in Xijing Village have grown wax gourd as the primary industry, becoming a well-known "wax gourd village". Wax gourd planting in Xijing Village also radiates to nearby La Pu Village, Dongjing Village, Miaotan Village and some villages in Zhengguo Town and Paitan Town. At present, the perennial planting area of black wax gourd in Xiaolou town has reached 13000 mu, directly driving farmers to increase their income by more than 65 million yuan.

In 2003, at the initiative of Zhou Zhitang, Xijing Village established the Winter Gourd and vegetable Association, which is committed to helping villagers solve problems in the planting process, and black-skinned wax gourd cultivation has entered a more professional level.

Forge ahead and constantly improve planting techniques

The output and quality of wax gourd have been improved, how to solve the problem of marketing? With this problem, Zhou Zhitang and several villagers went to some large farmers' markets in Guangzhou to do market research. After a period of visit, Zhou Zhitang learned that there are more Rain Water in the northern region before and after the Spring Festival, and the output of vegetables is relatively low. Many vegetable buyers will go south to buy some vegetables that have been stored for a long time and are not easy to deteriorate. Wax gourd is one of their choices.

So Zhou Zhitang tried to get in touch with vegetable buyers in the north, introduce them to the black-skinned wax gourd in Xijing Village, and personally take them to the fields to visit. Due to the advantages of large size, strong growth, disease resistance and high yield, black wax gourd quickly entered the northern market. In 2011, Zhou Zhitang established a Guangzhou Zengcheng Green basket vegetable Professional Cooperative to actively explore the "cooperative + peasant household" model, so that agricultural products such as black wax gourd can be sold to Shandong, Zhejiang and other places, and Zengcheng late vegetables will be sold to the Pearl River Delta. Even Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore and so on.

When the marketing problem is solved, new problems begin to emerge. Around 2010, Zhou Zhitang found that the cultivation of black-skinned wax gourd began to appear "bottleneck". Due to the decline of soil fertility, the yield of wax gourd began to be greatly reduced. After exchanges and discussions with agricultural experts, Zhou Zhitang once again improved the technology, introduced a batch of Dutch potatoes, and carried out rotational cultivation to improve soil quality and comprehensive production capacity. In 2011, Xiaolou Town officially launched the project "promoting Winter Potato for Poverty Alleviation in the Northern Mountain area of Zengcheng City". Zhou Zhitang served as a technical guide to promote the development of potato cultivation in the direction of scale and specialization. At present, the potato planting area in Xijing Village is about 1000 mu, with a yield of 2500 Mu and 3000 kg per mu.

This attempt opened the way for Zhou Zhitang to explore diversified planting. In the same year, Zhou Zhitang leased more than 100 mu of land and introduced more than 10 new varieties, such as fruit papaya, green jadeite small wax gourd and Huaishan, which were well received by the market and continuously promoted.

The immediate achievements did not stop Zhou Zhitang. At present, Zhou Zhitang is working with experts and professors from South China Agricultural University to promote the soilless cultivation Project, and continues to try to improve the cultivation of black-skinned wax gourd by grafting.

Bear in mind the purpose and spare no effort to serve the villagers

As a member of the branch of Xijing Village, Zhou Zhitang always kept in mind the purpose of serving the people and did his best to provide services to the villagers. Every year, regardless of the cold, winter and heat, he always shuttles through the farmland, helping growers solve the difficulties encountered before, during and after production through technical services, experience exchange, situation feedback, on-site guidance, and so on. in order to increase the production of agricultural products, increase efficiency and increase the income of growers.

Since the introduction of small radio in the village, Zhou Zhitang has also served as a broadcaster. "some broadcasters in other villages do not understand agricultural production and can only play some pre-recorded publicity audio. Zhou Zhitang in our village gives guidance according to the actual local conditions and climate change, making them more approachable." Deng Guifang, a farmer in Xijing Village, told reporters.

"now the issue of food safety is getting more and more attention. Once a problem occurs, not only a brand will be destroyed, but also consumers will be harmed." Zhou Zhitang said that considering the food hygiene and safety of consumers, Zhou Zhitang also promoted the establishment of vegetable agricultural residues and pest detection stations in the village.

In addition to glowing and glowing in the agricultural field that he is good at, Zhou Zhitang also actively cooperated with the two village committees to carry out village affairs construction. Starting with grasping the leading bodies, party members, and positions, and with the support and help of the party organizations at a higher level, he put the backbone of youth and strong work style, the leaders who have ideas and efforts to get rich, and the university student village officials who volunteered to go to the village to start their own business. into the two village committees. In order to reasonably distribute the compensation for land expropriation of the "Xiaolou Holiday Village" project, Zhou Zhitang repeatedly convened the villagers of the cooperative to work out the distribution plan, and personally led the land expropriation team to survey the area of land expropriation, and each household asked the villagers to sign and make public, thus promoting the land expropriation work to be carried out in an orderly manner in a fair, just and open manner.