China News Service, Lanzhou, June 24 (Zhang Jing) In late June, the 5th Tongwei Honeysuckle Festival was held in Tongwei County, Dingxi City, Gansu Province.
The one-month event is just a flowering period. From the green buds to the yellow and white petals, the loess plateau is swaying in the wind, producing gold and silver.
But little is known to the outside world, "gold and silver" are hidden before the flowers bloom.
In other words, once the delicate honeysuckle blooms and changes color, the economic value will be greatly reduced.
The flowers are white and then yellow, so named because they look like gold and silver when they bloom.
The reporter recently visited the honeysuckle standardized planting base and acquisition point in Tongwei County and learned that the acquisition standards of honeysuckle flowers are divided into 6 levels according to color, size, growth, etc. The colors range from turquoise, which is all blue and white, to yellow and white, and then to bright yellow at the outer level. The market price has dropped from 14 yuan per catty to 5 yuan.
The picture shows the comparison chart of honeysuckle flowers acquisition standards.
Photo by Zhang Jing
Wang Haodong, mayor of Lijiadian Township in Tongwei County, said that when the flower buds grow to about 1 cm and are blue in color, the medicinal ingredients are the highest, and the honeysuckle at this time is also the most valuable.
In Tongwei, the history of planting traditional varieties of honeysuckle can be traced back to several decades ago, but it is only used as an ornamental tree species, and it is sporadically planted in farmyards, and its economic value has not been developed and utilized.
Until 2013, the county introduced 270,000 honeysuckle plants for the first time, and planted 220 acres in different areas.
After three years of testing, Tongwei County, located in the hilly and gully region of the Loess Plateau, has comprehensively evaluated the yield, quality and benefits of the varieties tested at different altitudes, and the average income per mu has reached more than 3,000 yuan.
Benefiting from the advantages of soil and climate, the traditional Chinese herbal medicine honeysuckle grown here contains chlorogenic acid and luteoside 1 to 2 times higher than the national pharmacopoeia standard, which has extremely high medicinal value and broad market prospects.
Experiments show that honeysuckle has strong cold resistance and drought resistance, less pests and diseases, and high survival rate, which is suitable for local climate and soil conditions.
As a result, Tongwei County has explored the development path of "gold and silver" through seedling breeding, standardized planting, intelligent monitoring of bases, and industrial chain extension.
The picture shows the full blue flowers full of "gold and silver" before the honeysuckle blooms.
Photo by Zhang Jing
In the local standardized planting base of 10,000 mu of honeysuckle, from autumn seedling raising, branch selection, to shed wintering, planting in March of the following year, flowering in June, flower farmers can pick 5 stubbles.
There are local production and processing companies responsible for the acquisition from the fields, to the cooperation with Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Gansu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, in-depth research and development of honeysuckle.
Up to now, there are 3 series of 18 varieties of processed products developed locally, including honeysuckle tea series, wine series, and daily chemical products.
Tongwei County has 45,000 households with 203,000 farmers participating in honeysuckle planting, nearly half of the local registered population.
Liang Tao, deputy secretary of the Tongwei County Party Committee, said that honeysuckle is a "golden" industry for local people to increase their income and optimize the ecological environment. The county has an existing honeysuckle base of 140,000 mu, of which the area in full bloom is 120,000 mu. This year, the annual output of flowers is expected to reach 30 million kilograms, and the total output value is expected to exceed 600 million yuan.
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