Bayberry is delicious, but not easy to obtain.
The bayberry season is only a short month every year, and only in early July at the latest. However, it takes a year to plant, and it is necessary to avoid not only the cold of spring, but also the rainy summer – which will make bayberry taste weaker and not suitable for good price. When it is ripe, the workers have to work hard to go up the mountain to pick, the mountain is steep, not only to protect the bayberry from scattering on the ground, but also to protect themselves from falling down the mountain.
There are many origins of bayberry, but Zhejiang knows bayberry best, and Zhejiang Xianju has planted Dongkui bayberry to the extreme. In recent years, local farmers have also applied greenhouse technology to bayberry planting, which can advance the bayberry season by 15-20 days.
The delicious bayberry is now being sold all over the country through the efforts of the local government, farmers, e-commerce and express delivery. Pinduoduo, the country's largest agricultural product uplink platform, merchants carefully sell bayberry according to size and grade. According to platform data, bayberry has been selling for more than ten days, and the order volume has increased by 30%-40% compared with the same period last year.
This "summer limited" is also missed by more and more foreign friends. According to public information, Xianju bayberry entered the international market in 2003 and has now spread to the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Singapore, the Netherlands, Italy and other countries and regions. The Dubai royal family's Xianju bayberry buyer show has recently been on the hot search. According to the seller, the "same style of the royal family" belongs to Zhongguo, with 15 pieces in a box and 90 yuan in a box.
The same international "Mei" does not need such a high cost on Pinduoduo. Thanks to the support of tens of billions of subsidies and other resources, many people have the opportunity to try and love this Zhejiang special fruit, and Xianju farmers can also earn about seven or eight yuan more per catty.
"From Yongquan tangerines to Xianju bayberry, Zhejiang is one of the important sources of high-quality fruits. In order to meet the escalating needs of platform users, we adhere to the policy of benefiting farmers with zero commission for agricultural products, and continue to increase the support of tens of billions of subsidies and other resources for Zhejiang's high-quality characteristic agricultural products, so as to help them take root in the countryside, highlight their characteristics, and become bigger and stronger. The relevant person in charge of the fruit category of Pinduoduo said, "Taking the hot fruit bayberry as an example, freshness is its life, we will increase investment to improve the efficiency of production and consumption docking, so that consumers can buy good goods, let farmers sell more goods, and cultivate and develop high-quality, reputable agricultural product brands." ”
- At five o'clock in the morning, workers picking bayberry in the mountains. Liu Hao | absorb
"Xianmei" is not easy to get
Mid-June is the bayberry production season, and as soon as you enter Xianju County, Zhejiang Province, you can see the bayberry stalls on the roadside. On weekends, a large number of cars with foreign license plates are parked on the side of the road, and many tourists carry baskets of bayberry to fill the trunk.
Different from other fruits, the flesh of bayberry is directly exposed, and when you bite into it, it is soft and glutinous, and the mouth is instantly full of juice, rich in flavor, sweet and sour. The ripe bayberry is red and black in color, and the more "black" it is, the sweeter it is. In June 1994, Yan Keats, former vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, inscribed the word "Xianmei" after tasting Xianju bayberry.
Xianju bayberry is delicious, but it is hard to pick. The open-air bayberry season is concentrated in the month after mid-June. In the meantime, at two o'clock in the morning every day, the searchlights begin to appear in the mountain forest, which are farmers who go up the mountain to pick bayberry. They will be busy all night until the sun rises. In case of rain, the taste of bayberry will become weaker, and it will not be sold at a good price, and it is not suitable for picking.
Previously, to harvest bayberry, workers had to climb the mountain with half-human-high plastic baskets on their backs. Now there are electric "roller coasters" that carry people up the paved tracks. Although you don't have to waste your energy climbing the mountain, the "roller coaster" still makes people feel uneasy when they climb slowly and pass by almost vertical mountains. When they arrive at the destination, the workers climb the bayberry tree with baskets, and try to ensure that the plums do not fall to the ground when picking, otherwise they will not be able to ask for them. The mountain is steep, and it is not easy for workers to pick. In the mud next to some trees, some people will also insert ladders as aids.
They had about two hours to fill all the plastic baskets and then hang them on the "roller coaster" and send them down the mountain.
▲Guo Shuai, a new farmer born in the 90s, took over the family's orchard at the age of 17 and has 16 years of planting experience. Photo by Na Mu Hei ▕
Guo Shuai is 33 years old this year, and since he was 17 years old, he has stayed in his hometown of Dazhuang Village, Butou Town, Xianju County, to grow bayberry. At that time, his father responded to the government's call to tear down all the orange trees in the family and replant bayberry, "It still takes a lot of courage to replant 15 acres of land in our family at one time." ”
In the 90s of the last century, the Xianju County Government realized the important value of bayberry as a cash crop. Since then, the Xianju County Government and local farmers have begun the transformation of large-scale bayberry planting, and created a landmark brand of "Xianju bayberry" to guide the bayberry industry to take the path of high-quality development.
The government first called on farmers to switch to bayberry planting, and then set up cooperatives in the county to plan and manage planting techniques in a unified manner.
In the fourth year of replanting, Guo Shuai took over his father's class. Usually, bayberry trees are grown for seven or eight years before the fruit is suitable for picking. On the premise of not seeing any results, Guo Shuai did another bold thing: he changed the spacing of 3x3m to 6x6m, and only planted about 10 bayberry trees per acre. In order to produce bigger and better bayberry, Guo Shuai reluctantly cut down many trees planted by his late father.
Giving bayberry trees more abundant sunlight, nutrients and even growth space is one of the important logics for it to grow into a "boutique". Even when thinning and pruning, only 1-2 bayberry can be kept on each branch. According to Guo Shuai, these measures can make the proportion of large bayberry on a tree reach more than 50%.
In addition, in order to maintain the green ecology and the quality of bayberry, the local government has also stipulated stricter medication requirements: the use of pesticides is strictly prohibited half a month before the bayberry matures.
Before the bayberry is picked, the local town government will send a special person to go door-to-door to check whether there are drug residues on the surface of the bayberry. Samples of bayberry harvested from the orchard were sealed in plastic bags with their names and orchard locations labeled. If the sample fails to pass the test, the bayberry in the orchard will be "disposed of" and will not be allowed to enter the market.
In the circulation of bayberry, the detection of pesticide residues is still strict. Each bayberry market has a free testing center, and anyone can take the bayberry to test for drug residues at any time, "In this way, we can sell with confidence and everyone can eat with confidence." Guo Shuai said.
Traditional agriculture inevitably depends on the weather for food. Usually, spring is the pollination season for bayberry, and a severe spring cold may plummet the yield of a bayberry tree from 200 catties to 5 catties. In order to reduce the impact of natural conditions on yields, modern technology is now widely used in the cultivation of bayberry.
Wang Xiaofa was one of the first local farmers to use greenhouses to grow bayberry. He is 60 years old this year, with a thin body, and has been growing bayberry all his life. Now, he took out his mobile phone and skillfully opened the app, and he could "see" the bayberry trees in the greenhouse.
In 2021, Wang Xiaofa borrowed 500,000 yuan to change half of the 20 acres of land into greenhouse planting. After the greenhouse was built, he remotely controlled the temperature, humidity, spraying time and dosage through his mobile phone. With this intelligent planting system, he doesn't have to go up the mountain every day to stare at every bayberry tree. But every bayberry growing season, he will still live in the greenhouse to facilitate care.
The constant temperature and humidity in the greenhouse can protect the bayberry from the cold and rainy weather, and it can ripen 15-20 days earlier than the bayberry grown in the open air, and it can be marketed at the end of May. Compared with open-air cultivation, bayberry grown in greenhouses is larger, sweeter in taste and more juicy. Wang Xiaofa said that now the purchase price of bayberry in greenhouses can be sold for more than 100 yuan a catty, and this year, his 10 acres of bayberry in greenhouses were sold for hundreds of thousands of yuan.
▲Wang Xiaofa can operate and control the temperature, humidity and spraying procedures in the greenhouse on his mobile phone. Liu Hao | absorb
"Bayberry exhalation": Zhejiang version of characteristic agricultural samples
Wang Xiaofa remembers that when he first changed to bayberry, many people had a wait-and-see attitude. When the bayberry was ripe, the government opened up a bayberry market in Xilu Village, and there were few buyers and sellers, and he was one of the few farmers who rode a tricycle to the market to sell bayberry, and the price per catty was 1-2 yuan, "which is several times more expensive than oranges".
At that time, there were already large merchants who bought bayberry from farmers. They took a mold the size of a ping-pong ball to measure the size of the bayberry, and only those bayberry that were too big to leak out would be selected to be bought, and the price of bayberry per catty did not exceed 10 yuan. The remaining bayberry is either pulled to the market and sold, or made into bayberry shochu, or can only be thrown away for nothing.
Now, with the development of e-commerce, farmers are no longer just staring at big merchants, or waiting to be bought at a low price. In Xianju, starting at 6 o'clock every morning, they will carry the bayberry they picked on their backs to the door of the e-commerce owner's house. They poured a basket of bayberry on the platform at the door, and let the boss carefully sort them one by one, and then settle the bill according to the size and specifications of the bayberry.
- Starting at 6 o'clock in the morning, many farmers at the door of Wang Xuwei's house brought bayberry to trade. Liu Hao | absorb
Wang Xuwei, 35 years old, is a well-known e-commerce owner in Kantou Village, Xianju County. In the past 10 years, he has taught six or seven apprentices in Kantou Village. They just started helping their masters, learning how to run an e-commerce business, and then they all set up their own businesses.
Wang Xuwei has a business mind, and when he was in college, he sold wholesale watermelons in the dormitory, and climbed from the first floor to the sixth floor to knock on the door one by one to sell. Subsequently, he opened a bookstore online and earned his college tuition and living expenses. One summer vacation, he traveled to all the villages in his hometown of Xianju County to investigate the yield and quality of bayberry. After graduating, he returned to his hometown and decided to do bayberry e-commerce.
In 2013, Wang Xuwei established a cooperative and ran through the model of "farmers + cooperatives + e-commerce". "Farmers who don't have sales channels can sell bayberry to us, and then we sell bayberry to all parts of the country through e-commerce platforms." Wang Xuwei said, "The role of cooperatives is to provide support for farmers. ”
In 2019, Wang Xuwei began to open a store in Pinduoduo. The gameplay of Pinduoduo is simple and easy to learn. After a period of time, he accumulated more orders with the excellent quality of bayberry. Now, he sends out about 1,000 orders a day, "Good bayberry is in short supply, and if we supply more, the number of orders should be more." ”
In the past few years of exploring e-commerce, Wang Xuwei has developed a set of methodologies for cost saving and bayberry preservation. Initially, bayberry was only free shipping in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shanghai and Anhui regions, and there was no cold chain technology at that time, and it could only be sent to Guangdong and other distant areas by air, which was costly. Slowly, as the popularity of Xianju bayberry became higher and higher, Wang Xuwei reached cooperation with various express delivery, and the cost of cold chain distribution also decreased significantly.
In terms of bayberry preservation, the picked bayberry should be pre-cooled in the cold storage first. After pre-cooling, initially with a vacuum-sealed basket for freshness, to each bayberry is placed independently and vacuum-packed, and now Wang Xuwei uses modified atmosphere packaging mixed with nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide for fresh-keeping to inhibit the degree of bayberry decay and prolong the fresh-keeping time.
In order to ensure that the quality of bayberry in consumers' hands is better and fresher, Wang Xuwei will also use a higher price to receive the goods, "Each fruit of about 30g, our current receiving price is already dozens of yuan a catty." During the busy season, Wang Xuwei also hires 50 to 60 locals to help pack, each with a salary of 15 yuan per hour.
Fu Mengwei, a businessman, only sells bayberry on Pinduoduo, about 1,000 orders a day, mainly from Guo Shuai's orchard and the local cooperative in Xianju. According to Guo Shuai's statistics, after cooperating with Fu Mengwei, 70% of bayberry is sold online, and only 30% is offline, earning an average of seven or eight yuan more per catty than before.
- According to public information, Xianju currently has more than 50 characteristic bayberry villages like Kantou Village. Liu Hao | absorb
Just when the Xianju farmers were busy, Han Nuan, a white-collar worker in the office far away in Beijing, had already received the "Xianmei" in the mountains. She placed an order at Wang Xuwei's store, and in less than two days, she tasted the sweet and sour taste of the early summer in the south that she had missed for a long time.
This bayberry needs to be picked by farmers at two o'clock in the morning, and it needs to be pre-cooled in the cold storage for two or three hours before precise preservation treatment, and the staff needs to strictly control every link from the branches to the "hearts" of diners. This "Xianmei", which was once snubbed by the market, is now connected to the "local atmosphere" of e-commerce, and can finally raise its eyebrows.