Source: 2021-5-13 Yantai Daily 07 Edition City News
Big and small news client May 14 news (ymg all-media reporter Zhao Weiwei correspondent Jiang Yanfang Liu Qianning Zhang Bingcui photo report) A happy rain moisturized the Qixia orchard like Ganlin. Li Lijun and four colleagues of the team went to the ecological orchard in Dayuzhuang, Sikou Town, to check the soil moisture and take samples for testing. The vibrant orchard made Li Lijun happy, and what made him even more excited was that 4 people with master's degrees like him had joined Guodu Qixia to build an ecological orchard.
Li Lijun, a 32-year-old native of Qixia, studied for a master's degree at the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, specializing in the topic of "organic apple high yield". After graduating in 2017, he did not study for a doctorate, but gave up his high salary and returned to his hometown to become a fruit farmer. "Apple is Qixia's pillar industry. I just want to change the traditional fruit industry's planting management concept through my own efforts. ”
Li Lijun (first from left) and his highly educated management team.
In 2011, Li Lijun, who was still studying at Shandong Agricultural University, returned to his hometown and heard that Professor Jiang Gaoming of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was studying "organic apples", so he worked tirelessly to study the research base, and at the same time introduced organic theory into fruit tree management and operated his original orchard in a new way. After graduating from undergraduate, he joined Professor Jiang Gaoming's research group, began to study graduate school, and specialized in the "organic apple high yield" project in the orchard of his hometown.
"In 2015, the orchard I used for the experiment produced more than 9,000 catties per mu, while the conventional control group only had about 7,000 catties." Firmly believing in the thesis that "soil is alive", Li Lijun set out to improve the soil - others fed fertilizer to fruit trees, he fed manure; others cleaned up the weeds in the orchard, but he introduced all kinds of flowers and grasses to cultivate ecological orchards; others discarded rotten fruits, but he collected rotten fruits into the tank to ferment into fertilizer... The postgraduate project of "tackling key problems with high yield" allowed Li Lijun to harvest fruitful fruits.
After completing his studies, Li Lijun decided to return to his hometown to develop. But 4 years ago, the master returned to his hometown to work as a farmer, which made Li Lijun's relatives and neighbors very incomprehensible. For this choice, Li Lijun has his own reasons: "Qixia is a 'city carried up by apples', but now the fruit farmers are old, the seventy or eighty-year-old people are still tending the orchards, while the young people have fled the countryside, and there is no successor to the fruit industry." I stayed because I wanted to change the status quo through my efforts and let young people see the hope of rural development. ”
Returning from the Chinese Academy of Sciences to Qixia Orchard, Li Lijun used the spirit of scientific research to guide young farmers. Xia Yaying and Zhang Erpeng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Gao Huihui and Qin Liya of Shannong University, and four master's degree graduates who are interested in engaging in the fruit industry have gathered around Li Lijun and jointly managed 100 acres of land. Xia Yaying and Qin Liya's research direction is the cultivation of bacteria. "The role of fungi on agriculture is particularly large, so we invest more than 100,000 yuan to buy equipment for research." According to Li Lijun, ecological planting brings high quality and high yield. Their apples sell for more than 20 yuan per kilogram.
"Young farmers are easy to accept new things, and agricultural development is inseparable from young people." I hope that our efforts will lead to the return of more young people. Li Lijun said.
Editor-in-Charge: Weiwei Zhao