Chen Genchuan, a big turtle farmer

Walk into Zhonglian Village, Heshang Town, where mountains surround, streams gurgle, the sun rises with dew, and the setting sun sets with the sunset. Hangzhou Jiangen Ecological Farm is located in this village full of ecological aura. In the farm, I saw a square concrete pool embedded on the ground like a grid. When I approached the edge of the pool, it was really spectacular. One by one the soft-shelled turtles came to the surface, poking out their long necks and breathing fresh air.

"every soft-shelled turtle here has a 'ecological' label." It was none other than Chen Genchuan, the owner of the farm.

Chen Genchuan, 50, is a burly, dark-faced man with a "traditional look" in the aquatic business. Chen Genchuan, a native of Hutou Village in Chengxiang Street, has eaten "soft-shelled turtle rice" for nearly 20 years. In 1993, he started raising turtles. In the first few years, he cooperated with people and successively did turtle business in Xuxian, Haining and other places. at that time, the price was high, with a young soft-shelled turtle worth 7 yuan, a commercial soft-shelled turtle worth 70 to 80 yuan per kilogram, and an annual income of more than 5000 yuan per mu of pond. Chen Genchuan, who tasted the sweetness of the soft-shelled turtle, was confident and daring. He began to work with businessmen in Taiwan, Thailand and other places to cultivate soft-shelled turtles. This has been done for many years.

In 2008, as a project to attract investment in agriculture on the river, Chen Genchuan came to Zhonglian Village to contract 208mu of water, invested 3 million yuan, and set up an ecological turtle farm. This time, instead of cooperating with others, he chose to "fly solo." "after so many years of soft-shelled turtle farming, and learning a lot of experience, it's time to show your own strength." This year, he expanded the scale of the farm to 548mu, invested 34 million yuan, built seven greenhouses of 3000 square meters on dry land and built 77 stocking ponds on the surface of the water. At the same time, 30 soft-shelled turtle ponds were built to raise young soft-shelled turtles.

When talking about how to raise soft-shelled turtles, Chen Genchuan began to "preach." "the species of Japanese soft-shelled turtle and American pearl soft-shelled turtle grow fast, have strong resistance to disease, are suitable for breeding in greenhouses and ponds, and are in demand in the market." He said that after buying soft-shelled turtles from other places, they began to breed and breed themselves. from May to August every year, the soft-shelled turtles laid five eggs in the bunker beside the soft-shelled turtle pond, each with about 12 eggs, and then put the eggs into the greenhouse for hatching. in an environment with a constant temperature of 30 degrees, after about 55 days, the young soft-shelled turtles were raised in the greenhouse, and in June of the following year, when the weather turned warm, all the eggs were put into the outer pond. It will be available for sale by the end of that year. Chen Genchuan also revealed the secret of raising soft-shelled turtles: "in addition to eating full-price soft-shelled turtle feed, my soft-shelled turtle has to be fed with enough small fish, so the taste is no worse than that of the wild."

After several efforts, Chen Genchuan became a big turtle farmer worthy of the name. Apart from being willing to endure hardships, he was also willing to use his brains. After years of exploration, he combined book knowledge with practice, and finally found out the way. He gained the experience of "sterilizing once every nine days, feeding medicine ten times a month, and basking in the pond at the end of the year."

At present, Chen Genchuan's ecological farm has initially formed a "through-train" production system that integrates seedling breeding, feed processing and product sales, and has a sound industrial chain.

These are not enough, Chen Genchuan said. Through five years of development, the plan is to develop the farm into a leading agricultural enterprise, and will cooperate with surrounding farmers to establish a model of "enterprise + base + peasant household". To create an ecological "kingdom" with an annual output value of 50 million yuan and a total annual output of 100 tons of high-quality ecological brands.