Beijing newly dug up the "old flavor" radish to recreate the "beauty of the heart"

Original title: Beijing's "old taste" recreates the citizen's "vegetable basket"

Red carrots with whips are redder than ordinary carrots. Photo taken by Ke Nanyan (photo source: Jingjiao Daily)

The Beginning of Winter season, the reporter in Beijing Chaoyang District Crab Island Resort production base found different varieties of vegetables. At this base, vegetable farmers are harvesting carrots. The reporter saw that unlike the carrots they usually see, this kind of carrot has a purplish red skin and long rhizomes. The person in charge of the base said that this is Beijing's "old taste"-"whiplash red" carrots. This is a variety that began to resume planting last autumn after multi-party search and more than 3 years of purification and rejuvenation. According to reports, "whiplash red" carrots have longer roots, drill deeper into the soil when growing, need to be excavated manually during harvest, take more labor, and produce 10% lower than other carrots. However, this variety has a strong flavor, compact meat, and is more suitable for stewing and stir-frying, so it is very popular among the public.

In addition to "whip pole red" carrots, the base also grows other Beijing "old taste" vegetable varieties, including large and small walnut-textured cabbage, flower and leaf "heart beauty" radish, and "Beijing thorn melon", "Beijing autumn melon", "apple green" tomato, and so on.

Li Xinxu, deputy director of the vegetable room of the Beijing Agricultural Technology extension Station, said that in order to meet the needs of consumers, the promotion station has gradually resumed the cultivation of old vegetable varieties since 2011. at present, the number of traditional vegetable variety families in Beijing has expanded to more than 10, with more than 50 planting bases, with a total area of 900mu in 2015, supplying 3 million kilograms of "old taste" vegetable products to citizens of the capital throughout the year. From late November to the "two festivals" this year, 1 million kilograms of "old" vegetables such as "heart-beautiful" radish, walnut-textured cabbage, "whiplash red" carrot, "Beijing thorn melon" and "apple green" tomato will be on the market one after another, adding some "Beijing flavor" to the citizens'"vegetable basket".

It is understood that vegetable production in Beijing has a history of more than 2000 years. Since the founding of New China, relying on the unremitting efforts of many scientific and technological workers and the vast number of vegetable farmers, the suburbs of Beijing have formed a tradition of intensive cultivation, summed up a lot of valuable experience, and also appeared many nationally famous unique varieties of vegetables. such as the five-color leek in Yinghai Village, Daxing District, Xihongmen in Daxing District and the "Heart Beauty" radish in Luodaozhuang, Haidian District, after the mid-1980s. These varieties are gradually lost in the process of agricultural structure adjustment. (our reporter Lu Xiaochun)