At 5 a. M., the air in the town of golden bulls, binchon county, da lisi, is cold through the highlands, with temperatures below 10 degrees. However, when yang entered his home's hysteria, he fell in front of a hot wave of mud and fermented fruit。
Thermometer in the shed is 26 degrees. The yang skilledly pushed the switch on the control box, and the lighting light on the top of his head was flashed in an instant, placing the closed space, which covers more than 20 acres, as day. Under the bright lights, the vines are filled with a string of green grapes — each full of hotness and glamour。
It's early april. In the vast majority of the grape-producing areas of china, such as xinjiang trump or hebei, the outdoor vines have only just woke up from a long hibernation and ejaculated the buds of grain size. But in the pheixie plateau, which is more than 2,000 kilometres from the sea and more than 1400 metres above sea level, yang's sunshine rose has reached its final stage of expansion, and in 20 days it will be ready to be packed in a box and sent to the northward high-end supermarket。
In nature's original rhythm, grapes are a year-old tree of falling leaves, with fall results and winter leaves dormant. But in binchon, this ancient plant rhythm was completely shattered by a hard-core agricultural technology. Grapes here can be marketed not only in the spring and summer seasons, but even “twice a year”。
This is no longer a traditional weather-based diet, but rather an industrialization limit that is carried out in a plastic shed and that is precise enough to keep each temperature difference and every drop of nutrient。
The sun and water in the dry-hot valley
To understand the agricultural miracle of binchon, it is necessary to understand the geographical code here。
Bencheon county, located in the kange valley of the jinsha river, is surrounded by three mountains, blocking the warm and wet air flow from the indian ocean and the pacific ocean. The climate features here can be summed up in eight words: the sun is strong and the rain is dry. Throughout the year, the sun was close to 3,000 hours, the frostless period was nearly 300 days, and the temperature varied greatly by day and night。
In the traditional agricultural age, drought is the disease here. The local elders recalled that the early bencheon had often been a problem for drinking water, that the mountains were bare and that only a drought-resistant valley could be planted. Until then, the well-known "mom into" project went through, and the waters of the sea of da lisi passed through the mountains and flowed into the dry binchon basin。
With water, the core resource of the dry fever valley — “sun” and “temperature” — has suddenly become the most lethal agricultural weapon. Sufficient ultraviolet light allows the fruit to synthesize huge amounts of sugar, which, in turn, prevents plants from consuming at night. As a result, bin twaon has jumped to become china's highest tropical, subtropical fruit-producing gold zone。
But it is the greatest development of the local fruit farmers for the “time difference” that truly gave binchon a dominant position on the national fruit map。
Breaking the biological clock: sleeping and complication
Yang has grown for half his life, but now talks about grapes, more like a professor of botanical science or a chemical engineer。
"the grapes have a temper. It's too cold in winter to sleep, and if you don't sleep for a certain amount of cold time, how can you water it in the spring and fatten it not sprout? In the dry-hot valley winter, the temperature is not low enough and the natural hibernation of grapes is often incomplete, which leads to a gestation of the second year, with different sizes of fruit。
In order to force the replacement of the grapes' biological bells, the binchon people introduced “sleep-break techniques”。
Upon completion of the first grape harvest in the autumn of each year, the fruit farmers are forced to leave their leaves artificially, accompanied by appropriate trimmed leaves, and then rubbing the buds with an agricultural demersal agent called mecamine (or lime nitrogen). This chemical sends a strong signal of deception to plant cells: the long, cold winter is over, spring comes, wake up。
With the warmth in the shed, vines, which should have been sleeping for months during the long winter days, will be forced to grow fresh in just over 20 days. Through this compulsory intervention in the physiology cycle of plants, the grapes of binakawa have been successfully “twice a year” or “twice two years”。
First, usually in april and may; second, through control, between november and new year's day。
It's a perfect double-blind strike. In april and may, the country's last year's stock of colded grapes was depleted, while grapes in the main production area of the north were still blooming; by the end of new year's day, open grapes in the north had come to the market and the market had once again become empty。
Bringing fresh raisins to the shelf of a large city at these two points in time means absolute pricing。
Field management, actuaries-like
However, it is far from enough to make a living on the plateau alone by painting demolants. The anti-season shed is a sophisticated instrument that devours money and energy。
Young yang's shed is a high standard steel-mounted shed, and the cost of constructing an acre is tens of thousands of dollars. The roof of the shed is equipped with an electric composter, a micro-jet and drip irrigation system and an integrated network of water fertilizers。
Temperature was the most lethal enemy in the first months of anti-season growth. In winter and spring, “spring cold” often occurs on the plateau. At night, the temperature drops sharply, and if the temperature in the shed breaks the alert line, the fresh fruit will be frozen. Yang's mobile phone contains several weather apps, which, in the middle of the night, he must rise up to the shed to make a fire pot and heat up the heat machine; by midday, the hot sun will be empty, and if the temperature in the shed exceeds 35 degrees, the grapes will be “depressed” and even the leaves burned, and he must immediately open the cape for ventilation。
It's more cumbersome than temperature control. It's a purely hand-made "kid."。
In public perception, as many grapes as possible. But in the high-end grape shop in binagawa, the rules are the opposite. Yang employed more than a dozen skilled local female workers, standing on high benches every day, holding specially designed long scissors and cutting off spare grapes with one grain。
"a line of sun roses, the standard is only 50 to 60 fruit, not one more." the female worker, ms. Li, had no head, had his scissors ringing, and in the middle of the day, she cut off half of the luminous lumber and fell to the ground。
This seemingly wasteful behaviour is intended to provide an absolute concentration of nutrients delivered by vines. Only by cutting half with heart can the remaining grapes grow to more than 15 grams per unit and sugar rises to more than 18 degrees. Fifty grains of fruit, a string that happens to be between a pound and a half and two pounds -- the perfect size of a plastic box in a high-end supermarket。
The pesticides, fertilizer, and water are priced in code, and the most expensive is manual. The labour cost of an acre is $120,000 a year for flowering, fruit-cutting and bags. Here, the grapes are not soaked and harvested, but sculpted on the water line with a jigsaw card。
The wealth dividend in the cold chain
In mid-may, when the first binchon sheds of grapes met their standards, the red land ushered in its craziest season of the year。
On both sides of the market for agricultural products and on the road in binagawa, there are heavy chilled semi-mounted vehicles with licence plates throughout the country. From kashin, beijing, guangzhou, the fruit offices (brokers) carry bundles of cash or transfer cell phones and travel between the sheds。
Mr. Chen, who was involved in fruit logistics, was standing in a sorting shed staring at workers ' boxes. Grapes, which have just been cut from the vine, with field heat, must be delivered to the pre-cooler in the shortest possible time, forced through two to three degrees of cold wind, and brought down the heart temperature, otherwise the grapes would be very soft and perishable in long transport。
“the price is the same day, even morning and afternoon.” boss chan pointed at a basket of pre-cold sun roses. At this point in time, only a few places in the country can produce such high-quality fruit. A pound of high-quality anti-season sun roses, the purchase price on the field could be close to $30 or $40, while the purchase price for the same species could fall to $56,000 by the time the grapes from the north come to market in september。
The huge price gap is the huge dividend of the technology that drives the shed. If yang's 20 acres were to have a good harvest and set high points on the market, one season's gross revenue would have exceeded millions. Here, the story of buying a car in a county town and building a three-storey ocean floor in the village because of the growing of large shed grapes is no longer news。
But high returns are always accompanied by high risks. In the end, agriculture struggles with fate。
Grapes may grow “blind buds” if the time of the trimping is not mastered or the concentration of the sleeping agent is not matched; if the swelling period is characterized by a series of rain and lack of light, sugar will not go up and the hard-earned fruit will be treated down to no cost at all; not to mention the fact that in the past two years, with the proliferation of large huts across the country, the time gap for the anti-season period is gradually being filled, and the market's inner rolls have made quality the only moat。
At dusk, a refrigerated convoy full of grapes began to leave binagawa, and the sound of the engine resonated in the dry-hot valley. Dozens of hours later, these cold-breathed precious fruit will be placed in a high-end freezer, 2,000 kilometres away, branding them with amazing labels and waiting for the city white collar to buy them off duty。
Yang stood by the road and watched the dirt on the convoy. And in his hut, a new round of heavy trimmed vines was about to come. A new cycle of life, driven by sleeping agents and water fats, germinates, blooms, results and, under the protection of plastic sheeting, accelerates operations against seasonal logic。
This arid and arid poor plateau now struggles with people by extreme industrialization and takes a huge piece of wealth cake from nature. There are the best calculations, the greatest diligence, and the deepest understanding of land and climate. Behind each of the clitorisy anti-season grapes is a condensation of the amazing wisdom and resilience of chinese farmers to change their fate。
Watch me, see real china。
