Honey peaches developed in Yangshan town, Wuxi's Huishan district [Photo/WeChat account: wxyangshan]
Efforts made by experts and farmers to promote the healthy development of the peach industry in Yangshan town, Wuxi's Huishan district are seeing strong results, according to the local government.
Eight enterprises based in Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou, together with experts from Yangshan town and Jiangsu province, have spent three years developing environmentally-friendly and efficient production technology for high-quality honey peaches.
In 2017, local authorities started to address the difficulties suffered by honey peach farmers, including sub-healthy soil and frequent pests and diseases. The government of Huishan district spent 50 million yuan ($7.1 million) to promote the research and implementation of related projects.
After several field trips, researches applied 12 key technologies in the demonstration garden, including soil conditioning, precise fertilization, and integrated pest trapping, which were promoted to over 100,000 mu of peach fields.
Statistics show that these technologies helped raise the high-quality fruit rate by 33.25 percent per mu (0.067 hectares). Also, the average annual use of chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides in the three years has decreased by 12.6 percent and 14.91 percent respectively since 2015.
The income of nearly 30,000 peach farmers has increased by 1.6 billion yuan to date, officials said.
Ma Xiaofeng, director of Huishan Agricultural Development Service Center, said the major changes in the technical system of the peach industry will also promote the revision of the technical regulations and product standards for the production of peaches in Yangshan.
