Facing the desert Gobi in the northwest edge of Taklimakan Desert for more than a million years, since 1986, the people of Aksu, Xinjiang, have built a artificial forest belt of more than one million mu in the vast Yellow sand. In the new era, the "fission" upgrading of "forest sea" green industry has played an exemplary and leading role in the green development of the whole Tarim Basin.

Aksu area, located in the south of Xinjiang, is located in the forefront of combating desertification and salinization in Northwest China. Only a few kilometers away from Aksu City, a ravine, saline alkali ravaged Gobi wasteland once stretched across it. This sand sea tableland, called KEKEYA, is the source of sandstorms in urban and rural areas.

In order to root out the sandstorm damage, Akesu started the KEKEYA greening project in 1986, and has planted more than 1.2 million mu. The cost of planting trees on the Gobi is high and the maintenance cost is huge. The local forestry and grass Department told reporters that the reason why the KEKEYA greening project can last for more than 30 years is that it has adopted the mode of "cultivating forests with forests" in addition to the spirit of not accepting defeat.

The so-called forest cultivation is to combine the unique light and heat resources in southern Xinjiang, interplanting economic forests such as apple, walnut and red jujube in the shelter forest. The government invests in the development and planting in advance, and then contracts the management and protection to the growers with the most preferential policies, and the income belongs to the latter, so as to realize the ecological and economic "win-win". At present, economic forest has accounted for 80% of the whole KEKEYA greening project.

"After ten years of hard work, we will finally launch our medium and high-end wine" Purple Dream "in December." Recently, Xinjiang Haoyuan Tianzun Winery Co., Ltd. General Manager Zhang Binxin told reporters happily. Engaged in the red wine industry for more than 10 years, he has been determined to make a violet color of Chinese wine.

This winery, which is located in KEKEYA Town, Wensu County, Aksu Prefecture, looks like an ancient European castle and integrates with the surrounding ten thousand mu grape plantation. Ten years ago, as a large private enterprise in southern Xinjiang, Xinjiang Haoyuan Natural Gas Co., Ltd. settled in KEKEYA town of Wensu County in the form of investment invitation and participated in the fourth phase of KEKEYA greening project.

According to Zhang Bin, facing the Gobi Desert formed 2 million years ago, the enterprise hired experts to carry out soil quality analysis, and found that the soil was seriously lack of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other elements, but calcium, iron, selenium and other trace elements were rich, so it was the best planting area for grapes.

During the past 10 years, the company has experienced many twists and turns, from grape trial planting to wine making workshop construction, and then seeking professional teams. "Whether it's grape planting or wine making, it's a long-term work, and it needs emotion and persistence in particular," Zhang said

Also involved in the fourth phase of the KEKEYA greening project is Aksu ice snow honey crisp garden fruit industry Co., Ltd. Li Hong, the person in charge, also stressed the importance of feelings. "To do agriculture, you should have" something in your eyes and nothing in your heart. "

Li Hong, who is engaged in Oilfield environmental protection, stepped into the Gobi desert of KEKEYA in 2013 out of her feelings for her hometown. Originally, she just wanted to have a try, but she did not expect to start the journey of "fighting with the sky".

The climate in KEKEYA area is very suitable for Apple planting, but the soil and water resources in desert Gobi are all big problems. Most farmers choose to plant jujube with relatively low requirements for soil and irrigation. However, Li Hong decided to plant apples, but when she thought of the role of guidance and demonstration, the difficulty was beyond her expectation. "After several years of planting, the 30 cm deep stones on the surface of the earth have been cleared up and piled up as high as hills, which can only be carried away by large forklift trucks every year."

In order to improve the enthusiasm of the planting management personnel, Li Hong combined with the local reality and launched a unique "company + base + farmers" operation mode, that is, the fruit growers take shares in technology and management. Before the orchard takes effect, the company will pay 800 yuan per month for each farmer; after the orchard has achieved initial results, the income within 1500 kg of fruit yield will be owned by the farmers; after the orchard has a high yield, the income will be owned by the farmers, When the output is more than 1500 kg, the company and fruit growers will pay dividends according to the ratio of 4:6 to ensure the income of fruit growers.

More importantly, in order to improve the competitiveness of featured fruits in Aksu area, Li Hong's orchards are all planted in dwarf mode, each plant height is less than 3 meters, and a large number of modern machinery are used for management. Fruit tree varieties also closely follow the domestic frontier, "Aksu Area Red Fuji planted too much, I now introduce are the latest varieties in China."

Li Hong pointed to her new species of Venus Golden Apple told reporters that the price of this new variety of apple is three times the local Red Fuji, with high added value.

The same attention to variety improvement, and Aksu City Tianquan organic agriculture professional cooperatives. The 230 mu land of the cooperative is within the scope of KEKEYA greening project.

Liang Xiaojun, chairman of the cooperative, told reporters that jujube is one of the most important economic forests in KEKEYA greening project. However, in the past 20 years, because the planting area of jujube in the whole southern Xinjiang region has doubled, the price of jujube has continued to decline, and in recent years, the farmers' income is not high.

How to make the economic forest of KEKEYA continuously produce economic benefits? In 2019, Liang Xiaojun, as a local leader in getting rich, began to explore the improvement of jujube varieties. "The market is to see who reacts quickly and who adapts quickly, and it will be late if it is not improved."

In 2020, Liang Xiaojun changed the original jujube trees from dense planting to sparse planting, and replaced them with winter jujube trees. Compared with the traditional Jun jujube, the price of newly planted winter jujube has quadrupled. Liang Xiaojun said that he had a number of new winter jujube varieties in reserve

Liang Xiaojun said that he has reserved a number of new winter jujube varieties to ensure that his cooperative has long-term competitiveness.

Source: Xinhuanet