What’s Happening on The Farm?
February is the traditional Chinese New Year, and this year is the Year of the Dragon. I went out and returned to Guangxi during the Spring Festival, and looking back now may not have been a good decision. The number of people traveling during this year’s Spring Festival is particularly high, and I was stuck in traffic for more than ten kilometers on the way back!
Last week was the Firecracker Dragon Festival in Binyang, Guangxi, and in the sound of firecrackers, the dragon dancers swam high to all parts of the county, sending blessings from door to door, praying for a good new year.
At What Stage Is Your Crop?
While the harvesting continues, it’s also time to plant new sugar cane.
The farmers, sugarcane harvester, and trucks are busy in the field. We’ve unlocked a new function of the grabbing crane to fold drip irrigation tapes. They don’t have that much impact on sugarcane harvesting, but if the pipe network is not properly designed, the recycling of these tapes could be a problem.
Currently, 55% of our sugarcane fields are harvested by machine and 45% are harvested by hand. The farm is equipped with three harvesting machines, and more than 90 local villagers are also hired to manually harvest the sugarcane.
These canes will be supplied to the local Daqiao Sugar Mill, which guarantees the purchase of all sugarcane, so there is no need to worry about sales. This year’s sugarcane purchase price is 540 yuan/ton, up 30 yuan from last year, and we could get a second settlement income by the end of the season.
On the other hand, we must seize the agricultural time to sow the sugarcane for next season.
Over the years, we have continued to improve the efficiency of sugarcane planting through modern agricultural management models such as soil improvement, new varieties, deep ploughing and subsoiling, and rational fertilization.
Anything New to Share?
In March last year, I participated in the 2023 Guangxi Sugarcane Production Mechanization Technology Training Course. At the meeting, I introduced the construction of “8H” for large-scale sugarcane planting.
- suitable mechanization,
- whole-process mechanization,
- soil-friendly cultivation,
- improved seeds,
- water conservancy modernization,
- agricultural digitalization,
- moderate refinement,
- agricultural ecology
Source: gxzf.gov
It will be my long-time career to explore mechanized and modern agricultural management models for sugarcane and other crops.
