It is too simple for a bug to hide in the Summer Palace: there are more than 60,000 trees and shrubs here, the trees on the mountain are connected to the ones below the mountain, the trees in the door are connected to the outside, and it is difficult for sunlight to penetrate the gaps in the leaves. leak to the ground.
Compared with the Empress Dowager Cixi, the worm was an earlier ruler of this territory.
More than 270 years later, this ancient royal garden, which is the most intact in existence, has become the "back garden" of ordinary citizens, and the plant protection team in the gardening team shoulders the task of "finding bugs".
They must have the eyes of an eagle, the reasoning ability of a detective and the speed of a cheetah, so that the plants in the garden can welcome visitors in the best condition every day.
They are the last line of defense for plant health.
This team includes workers who have been transferred from the old military factory in the garden, as well as doctors who graduated from 985 colleges. They have to race against the aphids who "be a mother at birth and be a grandma in 7 days", and also have to deal with poking hornets, ants and other people. Kind of trivial things.
Generations have put themselves in the running gear of this living antique, guarding more than 1,600 ancient trees and green plants everywhere.
1
The office of the plant protection class is located in a small courtyard near Beiruyimen. The big willow tree next to the tiled house is nearly half a hundred years old, and the house still retains the atmosphere of the last century.
Compared to the old calendar on the wall, the creaking wooden door and the old electric fan embedded in the window, the computer seems to have come through.
Even in this era of information explosion, for plant protection classes, the existence of computers is far less important than legs, and experience is still the best reference book.
The core work of the day shift is insect forecasting. They must become a pair of eyes that are always online in the garden, soaking in the garden, discovering insect pests and recording them in time while walking and observing.
Although they are all walking around the garden, the attentive person can still distinguish the difference between these insect forecasters and tourists: these people are more hasty, and from time to time they suddenly stare at a leaf and wander around a tree.
Even walking through the long corridor with carved beams and painted buildings and the seventeen-hole bridge like a long rainbow lying on the waves, their eyes seldom deviate from the trees.
The sawdust on the bark is likely to be the excrement of longhorn beetle, the mucus on the ground is the secretion of aphids, and a fallen locust tree leaf may hide the "trails" of red spiders.
Shiny leaves, darkened and yellowed crowns, and any abnormality cannot escape their "eyes."
Sometimes they will look at Longevity Mountain from a cruise ship on Kunming Lake, and identify whether there is any abnormality among the trees. The green in the eyes of tourists is clear in their eyes.
Turning the garden is a physical activity.
Even though most of the employees are locals in Beijing, the first impression of the Summer Palace when they first arrived was that it was "too big" and "as expected of a garden built by Cixi with military expenses".
During the daily practice of 30,000 steps, the newcomers of the plant protection class had their white shirts soaked in sweat and turned yellow, changed a pair of socks every two or three days, broke a pair of shoes in half a month, and walked around every place with plants growing. corner.
There are at least 30 species of light aphids in the Summer Palace. It is not easy for Dr. to understand the plants and pests in the whole garden.
In 2008, 28-year-old doctor Wang Shuang jumped out of the laboratory and fell into the plant protection class of the Summer Palace gardening team covered in mud.
Among the newcomers who belong to the horticultural team, some secondary school students from Beijing Garden School are only 18 years old, and they already have rich practical experience in production.
Wang Shuang was worried.
Although I am a Ph.D. and major in plant protection, I am both an expert and a layman. I only deal with crops, and my focus is on diseases rather than pests. I don’t know anything about garden plants and insects. When I first came, I didn’t even know Magnolia .
As soon as she takes up her job, she has to hand over to the employees who work in the night shift prevention and control operations.
In order to remember the tricks of identifying plants and insects earlier, Wang Shuang will carry a small notebook with him when he transfers the garden with the old staff.
Each team will call the plant protection class when they find pests and diseases. She rushes to answer the phone and then goes to the field to check the situation.
Her master remembers that in just over a year, she was able to "know" the trees and pest species in the garden.
Making specimens is also a way to be familiar with bugs. Wang Shuang, the "bug catcher", is actually afraid of bugs. He used to scream when he saw caterpillars.
It was the first time that she made a specimen of the Spotted Wax Cicada, forcing herself to spread out the insect's wings without wearing gloves, pressing the nails into the insect's body while getting goosebumps.
After doing too much, she gradually became "immune" to insects and began to catch insects with her bare hands. Even if a bunch of vesicles were stung on her hands, she did not change her face, she just took out the essential oil and wiped it.
In the Summer Palace, Wang Shuang began to get used to translating scientific literacy into production indicators. "The pursuit of speed is greater than precision here." Compared with specific statistics, they often use the number of plus signs to represent the urgency of the insect situation. Comfort and acceptance are mainly used for comprehensive evaluation.
Three plus signs means that it will be resolved within three days, and four plus signs means that it will be resolved as soon as possible on the same day.
The pests will be allowed to exist until it becomes a disaster.
The plant protection class is the busiest every spring. Paramecium under the poplar trees is the first to sting, and as the temperature rises, it burrows out of the soil and climbs the trees.
In March and April, the aphids hiding on the pine and cypress trees began to wake up and were busy secreting honeydew and oozing mucus.
In midsummer, they have no time to spare, when the leaves grow densely, and the beetles and moths that eat the leaves begin to move.
In winter, because the weather is too cold and the sprayed liquid is easy to freeze, they usually go to the ground to dig the pupae to reduce the workload for the next year's control.
Sometimes a tree census is also done, because there is no foliage at this time, and it is easier for them to find out whether there are wormholes in the trunk and whether the tree is balanced.
In 2006, the American white moth was discovered for the first time in the garden. This alien invasive insect has a large appetite and fast speed. It can only lay hundreds of eggs and eat a bald tree in two days.
Jing Xiuyong, the 37-year-old leader of the plant protection team, remembers that during that time, they had to eat under the tree for lunch. They were busy until 10:30 pm for a week, and shared 375 medicine tankers. Caterpillar full of white thorns.
2
In the park, the turnover of employees is slow, and most people work for a lifetime.
The youngest in the plant protection class, Shen Feng, is 27 years old. He joined the job in 2017. He feels more like going to school than going to work here. His colleagues are "very Buddhist" and "no scheming."
He also thought about taking the exam for a "better" civil servant, but he "doesn't want to move" as he waits.
The infiltration of the Summer Palace has cultivated their unhurried character. Jing Xiuyong, the monitor of the plant protection team, summed up his work in the past 17 years.
In many respects, the plant protection class continues the traditional control method of "slow work and careful work".
"The Summer Palace is a park with a relatively low degree of mechanization." Unlike other parks, the Summer Palace has a large number of mountains and bridges, and the roads are narrow and tortuous, and large-scale machinery cannot be used. "Other parks may be able to complete the work in an hour, but we need several days. ."
Work trucks cannot go up Longevity Mountain. Workers have to push machines and pipes of more than 100 meters up the mountain, insert the pipes into the medicine pool on the mountain, and hold the pipes to spray on the trees.
In order to withstand the water pressure, the pipe is wrapped with densely packed steel wires, each weighing eight or ninety kilograms.
The workers who have just arrived cannot master the method well. They need to practice for a month with clear water before they can charge the medicine.
The method of moving with the weather is also handed down by the old workers.
The prevention and control effect of strong winds is poor. They will fight around sunset and when the wind is the least; the direction of the wind is also particular, the north wind hits the south of the mountain, and the south wind hits the north of the mountain.
They wear work clothes when they go out from home, and the weather directly determines which door they enter for work: if the wind is strong, they should look from the west to see if the willow tree on the west dike has fallen; The main scenic spots such as the corridor and the Hall of Renshou, look at the disease infection of plants.
Wang Shuang and Jing Xiuyong's master Wei Baohong has been engaged in pest control in the Summer Palace since 1985. At that time, spraying medicine was still sitting on a swaying walking tractor.
The work of the master's master is more basic. After three years of difficult times, he carried fruit saplings to the west of the garden to open up wasteland, tied a rope around his waist, and ate two mouthfuls of steamed buns when he was tired.
Although the contribution of the old workers was overshadowed by the passage of time, they did not care at all, and even enjoyed it.
Wei Baohong once designed a mud ring to prevent paramecia from climbing trees at a very low cost. It is used in various parks, but he never thought of applying for a patent. Isn't your purpose just for everyone to use it?"
In the eyes of these old workers, the most important thing is "not to pick out faults".
It has been dry for a long time. When cleaning the oiled glass, it is important which direction to flush and which direction to dry.
Their familiarity with tools is like a part of their body. They know where to find a screw that falls from the machine, and they are reluctant to throw the cotton thread that wipes the machine black.
A 59-year-old worker will retire next year, and now he will take everyone around the garden after lunch, walking 7.3 kilometers in an hour and a half, in order to see the trees.
Observation has become a habit. They usually like to look up at the tree when they have nothing to do. More than once, they "don't know even if their wallets are swollen."
Once Jing Xiuyong and his colleagues went to the Temple of Heaven for training, because they were too focused, the money fell out of his colleague's pocket one by one, and Jing Xiuyong who was walking behind stepped on it, neither of them felt it.
The employees of the plant protection class all believe that to do this job, they must be able to talk to plants and understand the language of trees.
Some trees are debilitated by no longer blooming, while others bloom wildly before debilitating.
Trees will also actively send out signals just like people. Jing Xiuyong found that when some trees are obviously yellower than others, they should "comb" and remove dead branches and branches. Thin, it will be comfortable in summer."
The plant protection class will try their best to "fight wits" with the pests after finding the distress signal of the trees.
The two-striped cedar beetle likes to hide in the trunks of cypress trees. To lure them out, workers will place fresh cypress segments next to the trees to release their scent.
If this doesn't work, release swollen-legged wasps, and let them also burrow into the tree and parasitize the beetle larvae.
The habits of insects can also be used by humans.
Some bugs will suspend their lives when they are in danger. When a person shakes the tree trunk, they will stiffen their bodies and fall from the tree into the grass.
Catching the long beetle in summer is like going back to childhood. The workers will catch more beetles than anyone else, using a flashlight to knock the long beetle down with a bamboo pole.
People in the plant protection class don't "hate to the bone" for bugs. Jing Xiuyong always uses "disruptive" and "tempered" to describe bugs. "Every bug has a cute place", such as the common "hanged ghost" in the park. , there are feet in the front and rear, the middle is empty, and the body should always be arched when crawling, "a bit like a jade belt bridge".
He remembered that the ancients once boasted that the inchworm "has a beginning and an end", and the "Book of Changes" also recorded that "the buckling of the inchworm is for the sake of faith". The ancients believed that the inchworm bent its body to move forward better.
Here, insects were also a good omen.
Empress Dowager Cixi will encourage everyone to catch bugs during the "Zhonghe Festival". The maids will start looking for insects with a good horn lamp and a homemade feather brush. The group of maids who catch the most insects will be rewarded.
In the eyes of "Lafayette", there are many bugs, which means this year is a good year.
3
In addition to communicating with trees, people in the plant protection class also need to communicate with people.
In horticulture and greening, the plant protection class received the most complaints.
Tourists will complain if they see too many ants climbing on the tree, if they are stung by a wasp, if they are stung by a wasp, if they drive too fast, they must complain.
A large number of chironomids fly out of the water every year before and after the sting, and some tourists claim that "a large number of UFOs appear in the Summer Palace".
Even after being told that chironomids are "vegetarian" and harmless to humans, some tourists are still disgusted by the dense mass of creatures that occupy human territory.
There are also uncles and aunts who like to supervise their work, stand aside and watch and say that they are cut asymmetrically and the medicine is sprayed unevenly.
The employees have been asked a lot, and they have also figured out a way to reply: if they meet tourists who are unfamiliar with the place and have doubts, they can explain it easily; Just fine.
Although their job does not include service in the gate area, they keep in mind one of the working principles of the Summer Palace - "serving tourists is right and proper".
As the most unpopular "God of Plague", the emergency prevention and control workers on the night shift cannot avoid scolding.
A night shift worker admitted that he was most afraid of going to Dongdi for prevention and control in late autumn. By 7 p.m., there were still many tourists watching the "Golden Light Piercing" by the lake. "If you don't kill me, I will kill you" scolding.
The Longevity Mountain is also relatively hidden. Sometimes there is no one at a glance. When the work starts, a young couple will suddenly emerge from the grass.
Therefore, the night shift workers are not afraid of enduring hardships. They are loud and straight-tempered, but they never care about things. "If you care about this job, you won't be able to do it."
From the time he chose a major in plant protection, Wang Shuang knew that it was a long-term endeavor. Many pests had a long growth cycle and could not see all the insect states within a year. "It is difficult for us to persist in this work for one or two years. It will take 10, 20, 30 years or even longer to produce results." For Wang Shuang, studying for a doctorate and coming to the Summer Palace was like passing the ball in front of him, "It's my turn to pick it up."
Plant protection majors are recognized as "not profitable". Some people sell their houses after graduation, and some go back to work as local civil servants. Selling pesticides has been regarded as staying in the industry.
When graduating, the tutor supported Wang Shuang to go to the Summer Palace, "at least he can still use his professional knowledge".
At that time, there were actually opportunities to study abroad, but Wang Shuang found that many research results were limited to the laboratory. For example, biological control has been discussed academically for many years, but it has not been widely used in production.
Although many front-line production workers can find problems and have easy access to research materials, they lack corresponding channels and high-precision scientific research instruments, so they cannot give full play to their advantages.
Wang Shuang wants to be a bridge between research and production.
After coming to the Summer Palace, she found that although everyone can remember the time and pattern of spraying pesticides by experience, the memory will be clearer when they know the scientific reasons behind them.
In addition, the pests are more ferocious and easy to observe, and they are more concerned in the front-line control measures of the park, while the diseases she studied when she was studying were slower and the principles were more complicated.
Since his research direction is plant pathology, Wang Shuang began to lead his colleagues to do scientific research projects related to the disease of Begonia branches and stems, so as to cut off the infection at an early stage.
When other stronger research teams are interested in related topics, she will also take the initiative to contact and provide research materials. "Someone has to do it," she said, reaching out and breaking the withered branches of the rose in front of her.
Unlike the team in the park, they are not directly exposed to tourists. More often, their work "relies on self-consciousness".
Wang Shuang said, "We don't have such a rigid requirement of clocking in. Pests can also be regarded as natural disasters, but you know in your heart that this is your job."
Sometimes, workers on night shifts would call day-shift workers who had already left to discuss plans over and over again.
Although the visibility is poor at night, they will not miss every tree hidden in a ditch and wrapped by other tree species, even in places where no one can see, and some people say, "(The park) will always open this day. , every tree has its time to be seen."
4
People who have worked in the Summer Palace will always remember it.
After the old employees of the plant protection class retire, they will come to the garden during working hours and tell the young people about the problems they have seen.
The old worker, who will retire next year, lived next to the Summer Palace when he was a child. When he went to school, he would first turn into the Summer Palace and then run out through the gate.
He missed the dime a ticket when he was young, and the hustle and bustle of everyone rushing out when urgent work came.
Shen Feng, the youngest in the plant protection class, couldn't let go of the scenery.
There are many trees on Longevity Mountain, and the mountain is surrounded by groups, but there is a gap near Qianfeng Caicui, which is called "the best viewing point" by Shen Feng.
Nearly you can see Nanhu Island surrounded by water waves, and from a distance you can see almost half of the Haidian District. If you can see the Radio and TV Tower, it means that the weather is not bad.
After the daily homework, Shen Feng stood here for a short time, smelling the fragrance of pine and cypress, letting the wind blow away the sweat from his body.
He thought it was "beautiful every day".
When he first arrived, Wang Shuang found that almost all his colleagues were locals. Wang Shuang was from Nanyang, Henan, and he was full of energy. "I want to prove that I am not here to get a hukou or a job opportunity, and I have to stand up for myself."
Slowly, the reason for perseverance changed from "striving for breath" to "every day, and every day."
The climate is different every year, and new bugs are discovered every year. She never thought of leaving. "The tree has new changes, and the bugs haven't recognized them yet. How can they go? It's like a rabbit digs a radish, digging a little and then giving up and digging the next one. You will never be able to dig the place." Now, because of the convenience of work, she can always reunite with classmates from all over the world in the garden, and she feels very satisfied.
Wang Shuang sees the Summer Palace as a place where various cultures meet and collide.
She often stood on the bridge at the west gate and looked at Tuancheng Lake.
Tuancheng Lake is the water source of Beijing and the end point of the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project. In order to protect the water quality, it is surrounded by railings taller than people on all sides. Ximen is the only place without railings.
For the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, Wang Shuang's hometown of Xichuan, Nanyang, has hundreds of thousands of people who have left the place where they have lived for generations. She always remembers the cut down peach forest in her hometown and the villagers who brought her family along.
The water in my hometown always has a faint sweetness. "I happened to be from there, and now I am here to protect the water, protect the water bottle, and protect the bond between me and my hometown."
In the past 14 years, Wang Shuang can realize that the concept of pest control is also gradually changing.
Previously, there were strict requirements on the ratio of beneficial insects to pests, and the pesticides were highly toxic and poorly targeted, and insect corpses were everywhere they went.
Now, more attention is paid to biological protection, and the number of pests such as aphids and longhorn beetles is controlled by introducing lady beetles and swollen-legged wasps.
Wang Shuang feels that it is difficult to protect plants in the city, "urban gardens are a more fragile ecosystem".
Human activities such as thermal radiation, exhaust emissions, and globalization will affect the habits of animals and plants, and control measures may in turn affect human life experience.
Due to climate change and frequent human activities, pine wood nematode disease, which only appeared in the south, has gradually broken through the temperature limit in recent years, becoming a potential threat to the pine forests in the north.
She mentioned a sentence written by Ji Cheng, a garden expert in the late Ming Dynasty, in "Garden Management", "It is easy to construct a sculpted building with a flying couplet, but it is difficult to have a shady tree and a jade."
The meaning of this sentence is that it is very easy to build a house and draw a picture of a beautiful beam and column, and there is no need to wait for hundreds of thousands; an ancient tree like jasper is very rare, and it takes hundreds of years So beautiful, rely on the sky to eat.
Wang Shuang said, "Even if you study a doctorate, you may not be able to save the fate of a tree."
"The Summer Palace has its own clock," Wang Shuang and his colleagues won't have drastic innovations or changes in their daily work. "Our job is to keep it as it was. Trees live longer than people, and you can only accompany them for a short time. Time, and then young comrades continue to take over for us." There are more than 1,600 ancient trees in the Summer Palace, and sometimes staring at the ancient trees with deep roots and leaves, Wang Shuang will feel awe and feel that he has no secrets.
Under the epidemic, the Summer Palace remains open as a municipal park.
Outside the garden, there is a full moon in the center of the Summer Palace Road. There are no tall buildings around, and people walk slowly.
The aunts and uncles in the garden repeated the activity of kicking shuttlecock with a history of more than 2,000 years. The young anchor with a selfie stick told the story of Cixi's prodigal family to the people who were trapped at home and could not be there in person. Everything was changing, but it seemed no change.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Daily reporter Jiao Jingxian Source: China Youth Daily