Dali village tastes success with winter jujubes

XI'AN -- Xue Anquan, Party chief of Xiaopo Village, recalls the days when the locals suffered from poverty, plagued by the difficulty of growing crops on the saline-alkali land along the bank of the Yellow River.

"In 1998, our village's per capita annual income was less than 500 yuan (about 69.3 U.S. dollars)," said Xue.

However, this village in Dali County, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, has seen its fortunes improve steadily in recent years, thanks to the new practice of planting winter jujubes, boosted by new technologies.

These days, the village boasts a vast number of plastic greenhouses, spread over 10,000 mu (about 666.7 hectares), containing winter jujubes waiting to be collected and packed.

Winter jujubes are a sweet fruit, better eaten fresh when they are crisp. Those produced in Xiaopo are well received by the market, generating an income of over 80,000 yuan per mu.

Learning to grow these fruits on the saline-alkali lands around Xiaopo was not an easy task. Led by Xue, villagers carried out countless experiments over a period of several years before they learned how to keep the seedlings alive.

In the following years, Xiaopo Village continued to promote the development of the industry through technological innovation and brand building, with support from the government of Dali, where a winter jujube development center was established.

Agricultural experts were employed to help farmers improve the techniques for growing winter jujubes in greenhouses, including light and temperature control, and the prevention of diseases and pests.

With the help of new techniques, productivity has been greatly increased. Winter jujubes in the area are not only harvested in winter, but can be collected from May through November in different planting zones.

"We have cooperated with multiple universities in various areas, such as management of the soil health to advance the high-quality development of the industry," said Zhou Aiying, vice director of the winter jujube development center.

Zhou demonstrated a mobile phone application the village has developed to assist farmers with applying fertilizers. By inputting data from the greenhouses on the planting conditions, the application offers relevant suggestions. "After more than three years of data collection, the calculations it makes are getting more and more accurate," she said.

Xiaopo Village has extended the industrial chain covering storage, logistics, e-commerce and product processing to increase the added value and ensure quality.

The annual output value of the winter jujube in Xiaopo has reached 120 million yuan, and 11 more villages in Dali County have also recorded an annual output value above 100 million yuan by growing winter jujubes. As a result, Dali has been dubbed "home of the winter jujubes."

The industry has also catalyzed development in other fields, including the materials for constructing plastic greenhouses and the deep processing of winter jujubes, bringing the accumulated income from all related industries in Dali County to 11 billion yuan annually.