In the midst of the spring season, the greenhouse tomato harvest in Cangnan County, Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, is in full swing. On March 22nd, the "Integration and Demonstration of Green and Efficient Production Technologies in Facility Agriculture" field observation meeting for greenhouse tomatoes was held in Cangnan. The conference was organized by the Vegetable and Flower Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Agricultural and Rural Bureau of Wenzhou City, and Wenzhou Vocational and Technical College (Wenzhou Agricultural Science Research Institute). Over 100 representatives from national agricultural technology extension service centers, research institutions, universities, and enterprises attended the meeting.
Experts inspect the growth of tomatoes in the fields. Image courtesy of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Experts delve into the frontline, visiting the Direct Courage Vegetable Planting Professional Cooperative in Cangnan to provide on-site guidance, and also touring the Smart Sorting Center for Algae Creek Tomatoes and the Wenzhou Seed and Seedling Technology Park, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the current status, technological advancements, and agricultural machinery applications in the greenhouse tomato industry in Cangnan.
Technology Empowers the Development of the Vegetable Industry
Cangnan County has an annual greenhouse tomato planting area of about 35,000 mu, with a total output of approximately 197,000 tons in 2023, and a total output value of 1.64 billion CNY. Ye Xiaojian, deputy county magistrate of Cangnan, introduced that Cangnan, located at the southernmost tip of Zhejiang Province, has a warm and humid subtropical monsoon climate, which has created a unique planting model of "planting in autumn and harvesting in the following spring and summer", perfectly filling the gap in the market between the main tomato-producing areas in the north and south, thus having obvious market advantages.
Cangnan is the largest county in Zhejiang Province in terms of greenhouse tomato planting area, truly deserving the title of "Tomato Kingdom". During the peak tomato harvesting period, nearly 3,000 tons of tomatoes are sold to major markets nationwide every day, with sales covering more than 20 provinces and cities in East, South, and North China.
"Cangnan is the main production area for greenhouse tomatoes, but it still faces issues such as poor efficiency in tomato seedling production, low levels of mechanization in production, and high labor costs," said Zhang Youjun, director of the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. To further promote the development of the greenhouse tomato industry in Cangnan, with the support of the major tasks of collaborative innovation in the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Institute of Vegetables has teamed up with the Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, the Institute of Bee Research, China Agricultural University, and the Wenzhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences to conduct technological research and development and integrated demonstrations in Cangnan, with a core demonstration area covering 1,500 mu.
Workers are sorting tomatoes. Image provided by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Dong Chunjuan, Director of the Research Laboratory of Cultivation and Post-Harvest Technology at the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, explains that they have integrated 11 common technologies, including efficient grafting seedling technology, new high-quality tomato varieties, greenhouse-compatible mechanized structures, wide furrow narrow ridge cultivation technology, and comprehensive soil-borne disease control technology, to form a set of green and efficient production technology model for greenhouse tomatoes.
By implementing this integrated technology, the seedling survival rate of greenhouse tomatoes has increased by over 5%, mechanization level has increased by 27%, commercial fruit yield of tomatoes has increased by over 5%, and the average manual cost per acre has been reduced by over 1000 CNY.
"The large-scale application of this model will inject technological momentum into the traditional agricultural production of greenhouse tomatoes in Cangnan. By joining hands with new productive forces, it will comprehensively promote the modernization of local greenhouse agriculture and provide a new model for the high-quality development of the greenhouse vegetable industry in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River," Dong Chunjuan said.
Challenges for the high-quality development of greenhouse agriculture
China is the world's largest country in terms of greenhouse planting, with a greenhouse area of over 42.7 million mu and a greenhouse planting industry output value exceeding 1.4 trillion CNY, accounting for more than 2/5 of the total horticultural output value and more than 1/4 of the total agricultural output value, providing over 70 million employment positions, of which the annual output of greenhouse vegetables is over 265 million tons, accounting for over 50% of the total vegetable output. "The development of greenhouse planting has made outstanding contributions to the year-round supply of diversified foods such as vegetables, fruits, flowers, and edible fungi in China, as well as to poverty alleviation, rural revitalization, and the improvement of farmers' livelihoods," Zhang Youjun said.
In recent years, the overall situation of China's greenhouse planting industry has been positive, with continuous expansion of production scale, gradual optimization of regional layout, and increasingly prominent features of energy conservation and efficiency improvement, effectively addressing the constraints of arable land and water resources and alleviating the contradictions between grain and vegetables, and expanding channels for farmers to increase their income.
However, "with the steady expansion of China's greenhouse production scale, some bottleneck problems have gradually emerged," Zhang Youjun said. For example, the lack of excellent varieties specifically for greenhouse use, unreasonable greenhouse structures, insufficient utilization of resources such as light and heat, low level of mechanized production, and extensive production management seriously restrict the development of China's greenhouse agriculture and urgently require scientific and technological innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration.
In addition, Zhou Zeyu, Director of the Horticulture Department of the National Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, pointed out at the meeting that the overall development of greenhouse agriculture in China still has insufficient total quantity and uneven quality, especially the heavy task of green transformation, the need to strengthen intensive production, and the relatively lagging supporting services, with imperfect element guarantee support.
To address the above industrial problems, at the beginning of 2023, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences launched the major task of "Integration and Demonstration of Green and Efficient Production Technologies for Greenhouse Agriculture", led by the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, integrating the advantages of the entire academy to expand greenhouse agriculture to traditional advantageous areas, desert ecological agriculture, and plant factories around large cities.
Zhang Youjun said that this work will promote the development of China's greenhouse agriculture towards intensification, standardization, mechanization, and greenization, fully tap the production potential and output efficiency of greenhouse agriculture, and provide "agricultural science wisdom" and "agricultural science solutions" for realizing "land transfer for grain", ensuring food security, and effectively supplying important agricultural products.
Zhou Zeyu proposed the "Four Strengths" for the high-quality development of greenhouse agriculture: strong technology, strong machinery, strong main body, and strong brands. Accelerate the promotion of key core agricultural technologies, optimize greenhouse structures to improve light and heat performance, safety, and mechanization suitability; develop integrated mechanized and intelligent production technologies and equipment systems for control, ultimately realizing "machine substitution for human labor"; actively guide the organizational, large-scale, and intensive development of greenhouse planting, cultivate and strengthen a group of trustworthy, business-savvy entities with strong driving capabilities, such as greenhouse planting cooperatives, family farms, and leading enterprises; create regional public brands and enterprise brands with prominent regional characteristics and distinctive product features in greenhouse vegetable production, and establish platforms for brand product sales and promotion.
