Text, Photos/Guangzhou Daily All Media Reporter Guan Jiayu
At the turn of summer and autumn, the lychee Xiaonian "final battle" report card in Maoming, a major fruit market in Guangdong, was eye-catching: the sales of fresh fruit exceeded 8 billion yuan, and the export volume doubled.
The reporter visited the local villages and found that while the fruit industry "troika" composed of lychees, longan and Sanhuali is galloping, the traditional fruit industry is taking on a new look.
The grapes are ripe one by one and the boxed price is more than 300 yuan
Before the beginning of autumn, the sun scorched a large vineyard in Xinyi Shuikou Town, Maoming City, Guangdong Province. The workers in the garden wore sunscreen towels, looked at bunches of grapes under the grape trellis in the greenhouse, and carefully picked the ripe grapes with scissors. Put the granules into a small basket with a water bag to avoid scratching the peel.
"I have worked in orchards all my life, but this is the first time I have encountered grapes that are picked, packaged and sold individually. The price is incredible—each one sells for 6 to 8 yuan!" Lao Liang, an orchard worker, told reporters that he was in the process of It is estimated that this bunch of grapes will take more than half a month to be picked. Unlike other varieties that ripen at the same time, this muscadine grape is ripe one by one, so each one is different in color, yellow-green and purple. It's ready to be picked.
At this moment, before the grapes sent to Shanghai arrived at the distributor's warehouse, they were sold out by downstream sellers before they were moved into the cold storage.
In the high-end fruit counters of Pudong supermarkets, 50-60 boxed muscarines are priced at 300-400 yuan.
Since there are few domestic growers and they are picked by individual pieces, the number of fruits available every day is not large.
The head of Zhitian Agriculture, which has planted more than 1,200 acres of muscadine grapes in Xinyi, said that most of the grapes have been supplied for three consecutive years, and the technology and experience have become more and more mature.
"According to the current market price and output, the output value per mu is more than 30,000 yuan, and it has outstanding advantages compared with the traditional fruit industry. After many trials, we have successfully planted this grape. The original intention is to use the output per mu as the benchmark to start a new A round of structural adjustment of traditional fruit industry varieties."
The flattering taste is not the main reason why muscadines can command high prices.
It is reported that this kind of grape with special aroma was originally used to enhance the aroma in the process of high-end wine making.
In its native North Carolina, the muscadine grape is not valued by fruit growers.
Muscadine grapes have one more pair of chromosomes than ordinary grapes, and their growth characteristics and planting techniques are incompatible with other varieties, and it is difficult to pick and pack one by one for mass production, and the labor cost is too high.
The main reason why the muscadine grape has become popular in the high-end fruit market in recent years is the re-evaluation of its nutritional value: its peel, pulp and seeds contain a lot of resveratrol, and the pulp also contains ellagic acid that other grapes do not have. .
The extracts of these two antioxidants currently on the market are expensive.
A relevant person from the local agricultural department said that Maoming has become the largest producing area of muscadine grapes in Guangdong.
The adjustment of the variety structure of the traditional fruit industry has brought a lot of inspiration to the local area. First, by introducing the main body of modern agricultural companies, it can more efficiently organize research and development of agricultural technology to develop new varieties with high output value; more choices.
At present, the market potential of muscadine grapes is not yet saturated, and many large supermarkets do not have it.
Break through the synchronization and achieve staggered listing
In the modern agricultural development plan formulated by Maoming, "five trees and one fish" are used as the starting point to build a modern agricultural cluster. Among the "five trees", lychees, longan and Sanhua plum fruit trees account for three.
In addition, Maoming also encourages differentiated innovations in varieties, harvest periods, production and sales chain organization, etc., to break through the bottleneck of homogenization and synchronization of traditional fruit industries.
In this context, the small orchard group in Xie Village, Nansheng Street, Huazhou City, Maoming City, has become a treasure in the eyes of the villagers that not only adds to the beauty of the village but also lays "golden eggs".
Xie Village has dedicated small vineyards, and the turquoise "Sunshine Rose" grapes emit bursts of aroma.
Xie Village planted "Sunshine Rose" through the "company + cooperative + farmer" model, bringing real income to the villagers.
In the eyes of Xu Gengsheng, the head of the Jintianyuan Planting Professional Cooperative in Huazhou City, the land in Xie Village is uniquely endowed and especially suitable for planting "sunshine roses".
He integrated 70 acres of land in the village to plant grapes, and will lead the villagers to develop the planting area to more than 300 acres in the future.
At present, the sweetness and aroma of "Sunshine Rose" grown in Xie Village have also been recognized by experts.
More importantly, Xie Village's "Sunshine Rose" matures late and can achieve staggered listings.
According to reports, the output of "Sunshine Rose" grapes in Xie Village is expected to exceed 600,000 kilograms. The cooperative has signed strategic cooperation agreements with Walmart supermarket and Baiguoyuan.
Intensive processing of fresh fruit into beverage sales
At noon, in the Guangyao Wanglaoji Guangdong Litchi (Maoming) Industrial Park, located on the north bank of Jianjiang River in Gaozhou City, Maoming, the hauler drove a forklift and loaded the lychee deep-processing beverage Wanglaoji into the truck one by one.
The staff told reporters that the local lychee sales season has long since ended, and the beverage products now shipped were produced more than a month ago.
Longan and lychees produced in Gaozhou are the most difficult fruits to store, especially lychees. Under the existing storage methods, the appearance and appearance of commercial fruits will be lost after 3 to 5 days, and the taste and flavor will be greatly reduced after 10 days.
Intensive processing is the only way to extend the sales period of lychees.
At the end of May this year, the industrial park was completed and put into operation in Gaozhou City. Fresh lychees were put into the production line one by one, and cans of "Li Xiaoji" went to the market from here.
This country's largest lychee beverage production base fills the gap in domestic lychee processing technology and realizes the synchronization of lychee "high-end fresh fruit" and "deep processing".
According to reports, this industrial park focuses on the entire litchi industry in Guangdong. By greatly extending the value chain trading period of litchi, Lingnan Jiaguo will change from regional production to global consumption, and from seasonal production to year-round. Sexual sales help to build a 100 billion lychee industry in Guangdong.
At present, the base is mainly engaged in the production and processing of lychee puree and lychee canned beverages. The planned annual production capacity of the entire production base is 9 million boxes.
The base has the only production line in the country that can process lychee juice. It is the most advanced lychee juice production line with the largest single-line production capacity and the highest degree of automation in China. It can process 200 tons of lychee fresh fruit every day.
A number of local fruit industry veterans said that there are two ways for the fruit industry to continue to increase added value in the future: one is to start a team to improve the quality of key fruit planting, and continue to develop better varieties to maintain the leading flavor of fresh fruit; The garden is an exemplary deep-processing industry, which not only plays a stabilizing role as a "ballast stone" for the large-scale development of the modern fruit industry, but also plays a role in long-term improvement of sales profits.
The traditional processing industry of Gaozhou longan is relatively successful. Now the local dried longan is much more widely sold in the country than the fresh fruit.