Ways to Gain Harvest

"The quality of corn is good this year." In November, 2020, the corn harvest is about to be finished at Dongxinglong Agricultural Machinery Operation Cooperative in Gongzhuling City, Jilin Province, China. Li Zhenjun, the person in charge, breaks a corn with full and neat grains and shows it to the reporter.

Jilin Province is the main corn producing region in China due to its superior production conditions. Gongzhuling City in Jilin Province is an important commodity grain base, a national modern agricultural demonstration area, and a major county for providing grain supply to other places in China. The total grain output in Jilin Province has always ranked the top in China, and the corn output accounts for more than 95% of the total local grain output. According to the statistics of Agricultural and Rural Affair Bureau in Gongzhuling City, Liaoning Province, the total planting area of local ordinary corn and fresh corn is 4.308 million mu. As of October 30, 2020, the grain crops in Changchun City, Jilin Province, have been basically harvested.

However, before the harvest of corn in 2020, typhoons happened in Jilin Province. At that time, the local corn entered the dough stage. The typhoon caused corn lodging in some areas, which not only caused certain losses to agricultural production, but also brought great difficulties to conventional mechanized harvesting. According to official from Changchun's Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau, as the fields had high humidity and were waterlogged, it was very hard to adopt mechanized harvest, which significantly prolonged the time needed for autumn harvest. During this year's corn harvest period, governments at all levels, food processing companies, farmers and other parties have actively responded to corn lodging, harvested crops in a timely manner to reduce losses, summed up anti-lodging experience, and worked together to fight against disasters and ensure food security.

Conservation tillage increasing the black soil's resistance to natural disasters

"Almost all of the 200 hectares of corn field have not bent down after a few typhoons!" Speaking of the corn in cooperatives, Li Zhenjun is very excited. The corn standing in the cooperative's corn field is in sharp contrast to the corn "covered with quilt" planted by ordinary farmers nearby. In his opinion, this is because of the improved varieties and farming methods: "We adopt Fumin 985, which has developed roots and won't be flattened so easily. The seeds sold to other farmers also do not fall down. In addition, we have been improving the farming methods in recent years, and the aerial roots of crops have been developed greatly."

The improved farming method mentioned by Li Zhenjun refers to the conservation tillage of black soil. Since its establishment in 2015, Dongxinglong Agricultural Machinery Operation Cooperative in Gongzhuling City, Jilin Province, has carried out deep ploughing of 40cm for five consecutive years. "Now, as the tilth soil has been established, we do not need to plough the soil every year. No-tillage residue retention technology can be adopted. The coverage of the corn residue can be used for two years, and then the soil can be deeply ploughed for another year.""It can be clearly seen that under the severe typhoon this year, the black soil protection project and conservation tillage technology not only help crops resist lodging, but also ensure stable yield and increase production." said Li Hongliang, Secretary of Gongzhuling Municipal Party Secretary.

According to Wang Chao, deputy head of Gongzhuling Agricultural Mechanization Technology Promotion Station, Jilin Province, the modern no-tillage and less-tillage farming technology with straw mulching can effectively reduce soil, water and wind erosion, improve soil fertility and water conservation and drought resistance capacity, reduce the use of agricultural machinery, decrease production costs, and improve agricultural ecological and economic benefits. "In the past, in order to ensure the food supply, the input of chemical fertilizer and pesticide was relatively large, which wasted the arable land resources." Wang Chao said that the "erosion" of land has brought hidden dangers to yield, so improving the quality of cultivated land can fundamentally help solve this problem." In order to speed up the promotion of maize conservation tillage technology, Changchun City allocates 10 million yuan of special funds every year to give support. Since 2016, Changchun Agricultural and rural Bureau has set up 100 demonstration sites with a total area of more than 100 hectares. In 2018, Changchun City, Jilin Province, further increased its financial investment, with a special fund of 37 million yuan, covering all towns and townships in the Changchun City. In the demonstration sites and demonstration areas, many on-the-spot meetings have been held and taken as examples for conservation tillage.

"Arable land is important for food production and a fundamental guarantee for national food security. The city's key task is to ensure grain security." Li Hongliang said that Gongzhuling City, as a national black soil protection pilot, has been undertaking the black soil protection and conservation tillage in Jilin Province and has achieved certain results. Crushing corn straws and returning them to the field not only help utilize straw resources, but also effectively improve the soil physical and chemical properties, so this technology is widely recognized by farmers. At present, 1.25 million mu of land in the Changchun City is dealt with conservation tillage and the area of conservation tillage is expected to be further expanded in 2021. In April 2020, Jilin Province has successively issued the "Conservation Tillage Action Plan in Jilin Province (2020-2025)" and "2020 Conservation Tillage Implementation Plan in Jilin Province", promoted two types of conservation tillage technologies, namely, no-tillage or less-tillage straw mulching technologies, and provided subsidies to agricultural machinery operators who implement conservation tillage."This year, almost 100% of our farms adopt no-tillage technology, and a subsidy of 585 yuan is provided to every 15 mu of land (39 yuan for every mu of land)." Cui Wendong, Director of Wendong Family Farm in Gongzhuling City, said, "if the roots of plants are deep, they are not so easy to fall down." Next to the excavated soil profile, Cui Wendong shows the corn roots under conservation tillage. "Our original purpose was not to resist typhoon. However, the natural disasters this year prove it is necessary to improve the resilience of the crops."Mechanized operation to ensure grain to be sent to warehouseCui Wendong learnt how to use agricultural machinery in the field since he was 17 years old. Now, his family farm grows 750 mu of corn and rice paddies respectively. He calculates the cost for the reporter: This year lodging is severe. It costs 4,000 yuan to harvest corn manually for every 15 mu of crops. It takes 7 people to work for 4 days, and costs the loading fee of about 4,000 yuan. If the mechanized harvesting is adopted, even if there are the fallen crops, crops can be harvested in one day, and it only costs about 3,000 yuan in total. "It is impossible for us to hire labor forces, and there are not so many workers locally." When it comes to the harvest means, Cui Wendong insists, "It must be finished by machinery."Mechanized harvesting is the common choice of large-scale farmers in Gongzhuling City, Jilin Province. The comprehensive mechanized harvesting is applied to 93.6% of crops in Gongzhuling City, Jilin Province. However, the emergence of lodging brings some difficulties to the local corn harvest. In autumn harvest, the local farmers improve the working efficiency by adopting better agricultural machinery. In the mid-September, Cui Wendong bought a new crawler type small harvester. Before harvesting, he renovated the machine and equipped it with auxiliary harvester. "A machine with auger costs 7,000 yuan. The machine with reel, which is suitable for harvesting crops of less severe lodging situation, just costs more than 5000 yuan, but the effect is good."In order to harvest lodging crops caused by typhoon, Changchun City has formulated and issued the "Changchun City's Technical Plan for Implementing Mechanical Harvesting of Lodging Crops in Response to Typhoon Impact", and proposed appropriate technical routes for mechanical modification. Also, agricultural machinery service team have been dispatched to harvest crops, instruct farmers to step up the modification of harvesting machinery, and prepare for the autumn harvest in advance. Seven autumn harvest task forces have been formed to guide the autumn harvest work in depth. In addition, Changchun City has allocated 10 million yuan of funds to provide policy subsidies for corn harvester modification. A total of 11,096 corn harvester headers have been modified: 1,311 sets of grain lifters and feeders, 3,997 sets of auxiliary feeding augers, and 5,788 sets of long cutting teeth.“In response to the impact of the typhoon on grain production, we effectively renovate agricultural machinery to harvest crops timely.” Li Hongliang said, "Next, we will also take effective measures, especially increasing the coordination ratio of agricultural implements through increasing the amount of provincial and municipal subsidies." Developing "in-depth" agriculture to promote high-quality developmentAgriculture is key to the stability of the overall economy. To achieve rural revitalization and development, Changchun City must first achieve new breakthroughs in agricultural and rural modernization. The four counties (cities) of Gongzhuling, Yushu, Nong'an, and Dehui account for a large proportion in terms of the cultivated land, grain output, and agricultural added value in Changchun City, and are the major places for the modernization of agriculture and rural areas in Changchun City and even in Jilin Province.In addition to increasing agricultural production, extending the industrial chain, upgrading the value chain, and promoting farmers' income, agricultural efficiency and rural development are the only way for agricultural and rural modernization. In recent years, Changchun City has vigorously developed the intensive processing of agricultural products, and promoted the integrated development of primary, secondary and tertiary sectors in the rural areas, agricultural efficiency, and farmers’ income; Changchun City has instructed and encouraged agricultural product processing enterprises to make innovation in various fields, such as corn, livestock and poultry, and specialty products, developing new products, and accumulating development potential. At the end of 2019, the agricultural product processing industry above designated size achieved an output value of 54.89 billion yuan in Changchun City.

"We will strive to coordinate the road network transportation, supporting facilities, industrial platforms, etc. Also, we will make every effort to build an agricultural industry featuring high-quality development, and provide support for the development of Changchun's "large-scale agriculture". According to Li Hongliang, Gongzhuling City will also continue to deepen reforms and innovations and extend the industrial chain and increase the added value of agriculture, so that farmers can truly benefit. At the same time, it will build a national modern agricultural demonstration zone and make good use of the unique advantages of large production counties (cities). "In-depth" agriculture will be developed to further promote the black soil protection, accelerate the rural revitalization, and make every effort to promote high-quality agricultural development.