Farmers in Yangshan, Wuxi have come to see that someone has grown peaches for 88 yuan each and planted them in Shanghai | Orchards | Farmers

If asked, where do we eat peaches in summer? Shanghai People's Congress may blurt out: Yangshan Honey Peach. Born in a well-known peach producing area, since the 20th century, its outstanding water spirit has gained the support of many diners.

There are also good peaches locally in Shanghai, and if we trace them carefully, currently over 95% of the world's peach varieties are directly or indirectly derived from "Shanghai Honey". The development of the industry requires high-quality varieties as the first step, and a standardized production process is the key to winning a brand.

"The development of Shanghai's peach industry was delayed by ten years." Nowadays, many new farmers are trying to narrow this gap, and Huang Wei is one of them. He used to be an "agricultural novice" who sold his large house in Japan and built an orchard on the land of Qingpu Bao, naming him "Hama Craftsman". Expanding from dozens of saplings to 60 acres of orchards, one peach sells for 88 yuan, and even one peach is hard to find during the market season.

He said he only wants to do one thing: grow "the best peaches in the world" in Shanghai.

Invest millions to improve soil

Huang Wei never expected that one day he would return to Shanghai to plant peaches.

He used to work in the cosmetics trade industry and traveled between China and Japan for years. By chance, I met the local "Peach Fairy" - Yaga Hiroyoshi, a fruit farmer in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.

Huang Wei only then realized that the first peach in Japan was brought from Shanghai. "China is the 'ancestor' of peaches, but the industry gap with Japan has widened in the opposite direction. Although the production is high, the quality is somewhat lacking."

When He Hao was young, he lived in China and was full of emotions towards this land. He hoped that the peaches in China would grow better and better. "The old man often said that he is almost eighty years old and wants to leave something for society." This touched Huang Wei very much, and with the support of the other party, he set a goal: to grow "the best peaches in the world" in Shanghai.

"Good soil is the key to growing good peaches. In an era of material scarcity, people prioritize yield and obtain a large amount of resources from the land, but neglect their care for it." Huang Wei still remembers that during the cleaning of the garden, there were over 1000 small carts carrying plastic bottles, bags, and other garbage. Since then, the orchard has established an immutable rule: whoever litters will be fined.

When dealing with soil, it's actually like dealing with people, the first thing to do is to understand its true needs. Huang Wei discovered that the land in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai is not lacking in fertility, but in organic matter content. This leads to high soil viscosity, making it easy to get muddy on rainy days, and making it hard to breathe in the sun, which is not suitable for plant roots.

When I first arrived, the organic matter content in the orchard was only 0.1%. However, in Japan's top peach producing areas, after three generations of improvement, the organic matter content can reach 6% -7%. If a little girl holds a branch and inserts it into the soil, it can penetrate 40 to 50 centimeters deep.

Huang Wei has already invested tens of millions of yuan in just improving the soil. The orchard insists on not using chemical fertilizers and replacing them with sheep manure transported from Inner Mongolia. At the same time, raw materials such as soybean cakes, peanut cakes, and tofu residue are purchased from the market to supplement plant protein for peach trees and fully emit a fruity aroma.

Unlike many farmers who hear the color of the grass changing, the reporter saw that in the Hammersmith orchard, soon to be ripe peaches were hanging on the branches, and green grass could be seen everywhere under the trees. "The traditional belief is that grass competes with peach trees for nutrients, and when others use herbicides, they follow suit." Huang Wei mentioned an experiment conducted by the Japan Agricultural Association, in which researchers compared ripe peaches grown in grass and clear grass under trees and found that the former was 1.98 degrees sweeter than the latter.

There is a lot of fertilizer in the soil, and sometimes trees are not easy to absorb it directly. Grass is absorbed and digested, then harvested and crushed by machines and returned to the field. Instead, it serves as organic matter to supplement nutrients for fruit trees. Moreover, as the root system of grass extends, earthworms and other organisms gradually increase, and soil permeability will be further enhanced. According to calculations, the organic matter brought by grass alone can reach 800 to 1200 kilograms per acre. Under this planting mode, the organic matter content in the soil of the Hamijiang orchard has increased to 3%.

Improve the commercial value of peach trees

Agriculture itself is a slow returning industry, especially in fruit tree cultivation. Not only does it have to go through the stage of no yield in the early stage of tree cultivation, but it may also face problems such as unsatisfactory commodity fruit rates.

In Huang Wei's orchard, starting from bagging, the commercial fruit rate of peach trees can reach 70%. And for ordinary farmers, achieving 40% to 50% is already quite good.

The selection of tree type is very important. Peach trees in the north are usually dominated by the trunk type, which is not very suitable when placed in the south. Once the upper peaches fall due to wind and rain, the affected area will be relatively large. The two main branches of naturally happy peach trees selected by Huang Wei effectively avoid this problem.

Difficulty in effectively controlling excessive growth is also a serious reason for fruit drop. Generally speaking, when peaches are about to mature, their branches will stop growing, and the nutrients produced by leaf photosynthesis directly supply the peaches. At this time, coloring and quality are optimal.

However, many places plant peaches and fertilize them vigorously in the early stages, but immediately control their growth when they are about to mature. "Plants, just like humans, have their own growth patterns, which make it difficult to effectively control the growth of branches due to their ups and downs."

Not only does Huang Wei have a high fruit yield, but he also alleviates the gum disease that has plagued farmers for many years, extending the commercial lifespan of fruit trees.

This is a disease caused by bacterial invasion of trees. The high groundwater level and heavy rainfall in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shanghai make the disease more prone to occur. Generally speaking, peach trees only yield in the third year. If the gum disease is severe, the trees will wither and die after four to five years of maturity, which is a great loss for farmers. In Japan, the stable growth period of peach trees starts from the sixth year, and their economic lifespan can reach 15 years, which means they can live to 21 years old.

In the Okayama region of Japan, there have also been severe cases of gum disease during the rainy season. Their approach is to find rootstocks suitable for the rainy season to graft and enhance the resistance of peach trees.

Huang Wei learned from professionals that most fruit trees in China still choose peaches for grafting. This is a variety introduced from South America 400 years ago. It has good drought resistance but weak resistance to rainwater, making it difficult to resist gum disease. His control experiments also confirmed this.

Once you find the crux, you can prescribe the right medicine. Currently, the lifespan of peach trees in the Hammersmith Orchard is expected to reach 16 years. "We are also providing free rootstocks suitable for grafting in areas such as Pudong to help alleviate this disease."

From being controversial in the past, to relying on data and quality to speak, Hama Craftsman is attracting more attention, including colleagues from Yangshan, Wuxi, who are coming to visit and learn. Last year, the orchard received over 5000 visitors from across the country.

The standardization challenges of agricultural brands

From the perspective of per acre output value, a Hama craftsman can earn 180000 yuan per acre of land. Many people ask Huang Wei: Can you earn 18 million yuan by planting 100 acres?

"Agriculture relies on the weather for a living, and the climate conditions vary every year, and the difficulty of management also increases with the increase of area. Its benefits cannot be applied to simple industrial formulas." Huang Wei said that industrial products are constantly emerging, and the deep reason why agriculture is difficult to brand is standardization.

It involves various links from breeding, gardening, production to sales. "After Japan receives peaches, the first thing to do is to hybridize new varieties, prolong the listing cycle, and solve the problem of easy spoilage when listed together."

The area of the Hammersmith Peach Garden is not large, but there are over 70 varieties. Compared to the typical market time of peaches in Shanghai from the end of July to mid August, the ripening period of peaches here starts from May 20th and lasts until September 20th. Additionally, 2-3 premium varieties mature each month, greatly extending the peach tasting period. Not only that, he also collaborated with the Municipal Academy of Agricultural Sciences to carry out the breeding of two new varieties, to see if they can cultivate peaches that are more suitable for Shanghai.

"The peach industry in Shanghai has been delayed by ten years, and to catch up, we must start with modern agriculture and boutique agriculture." Huang Wei believes that the scale of boutique peach orchards should be controlled within 200 acres and a grading system for agricultural products needs to be introduced.

In his orchard, workers screened the ripe peaches using a non-destructive sugar analyzer and divided them into four levels: t-level, a-level, b-level, and c-level. The price decreases sequentially, and the best quality can be sold for 88 yuan per unit.

In Shanghai, there are also regional governments leading the purchase of agricultural product grading machines. Industry insiders believe that machines are only the foundation, and in order to improve the enthusiasm of farmers for classification, professional forces need to intervene, connect production and sales channels, and ensure that farmers can produce with peace of mind.

In Japan, this role is played by agricultural associations, where farmers produce according to their established standards, and agricultural association staff pick and weigh peaches on site, sort and package them on site. After the product market auction, the farmers association takes 10% of the profit, and the remaining is distributed to the farmers. Both parties make profits, which gives them motivation.

In China, leading enterprises can become such professional forces. Fenghua, Zhejiang Province is like this. The government subsidizes leading enterprises, and the enterprises do a good job in quality control. They use their mature channels to connect with the market, allowing farmers to focus on planting. In Shanghai, the agricultural industrialization consortium in Pudong New Area also adopts a similar model, establishing core planting bases and relying on core cooperatives to achieve unified brand building.

Now, the Hama Craftsman Orchard has expanded by 94 acres on top of the original 60 acres. Huang Wei and his employees are busy improving the soil of the new peach orchard, planning a sustainable development model, and establishing the brand of Shanghai peaches, selling them to the Yangtze River Delta and the whole country.