Recently, the China Rural Professional Technology Association announced the results of the "Most Beautiful Science and Technology Campus" selection. Two science and technology campuses of Nanjing Agricultural University – the Radish Science and Technology Campus in Taixing, Jiangsu, and the White Tea Science and Technology Campus in Liyang, Jiangsu – have been honored with this title.
The White Tea Science and Technology Campus in Liyang, Jiangsu, is located in Tianmu Lake Town. It currently has 8 expert advisors and 5 resident graduate students. The campus focuses on issues related to tea production technology and tea garden management in Liyang City. It conducts various experiments with a focus on standardized production of white tea, ecological cultivation of tea gardens, and the development and application of natural immune inducers in tea gardens.
Since its establishment in 2021, the campus has helped demonstrate and promote the cultivation of 5 new tea tree varieties for tea enterprises, covering an experimental area of 225 acres. It has introduced 7 new technologies, radiating to a tea garden area of 3962 acres, resulting in a total revenue increase of 2.818 million yuan. The average income per acre has increased by 711.3 yuan, with a yield increase of around 3.8%.
Addressing the outdated field management practices and single planting patterns in Liyang tea gardens, the campus has further assisted tea farmers in optimizing planting structures. It has introduced intercropping of tea trees with hardwood tree species such as oak, loquat, bayberry, citrus, and chestnut, along with intercropping of broad beans, corn, and soybeans as green manure between tea gardens to improve tea garden production quality. The campus has developed a standard production system for high-quality and safe Tianmu Lake white tea and a technical protocol for intercropping tea trees with leguminous plants. Building upon the improvement of field drainage facilities in tea gardens, the campus members have used microbial agents to optimize and adjust soil microbial communities, improve and restore the ecological environment of tea garden soil, and address issues such as the lack of autumn shoots in the "White Leaf 1" tea trees caused by long and intense summer rains. The campus has conducted regular skills training for more than 3 months, organizing 5 various forms of technical training sessions, with a total of 1835 participants trained, including 18 Tianmu Lake white tea craftsmanship experts and 4 local talents in Tianmu Lake white tea production.
The Radish Science and Technology Campus in Taixing, Jiangsu, is located in the National Modern Agricultural Industry Park in Xinjie Town. It currently has 5 guiding teachers and 16 graduate students, with Professor Liu Liwang, a distinguished scholar from Nanjing Agricultural University, serving as the chief expert. The campus focuses on the specialty radish industry and actively promotes a four-in-one operation mechanism of "key technology research and development + industrial technical services + professional talent cultivation + new entity incubation." It strives to create a "zero-distance, zero-threshold, zero-time difference, zero-cost" industrial technical service model, deploying an innovation chain around the industrial chain, introducing and cultivating high-quality and multi-resistant new varieties, developing and demonstrating supporting green, efficient, and simplified standardized production technologies, serving the specialty industry, and promoting rural revitalization.
Every year, during key periods, the campus holds on-site meetings, observation sessions, and forums on the technological development of root and tuber vegetables, driving the high-quality development of root and tuber vegetable production in the surrounding areas of Taixing. The campus teachers and students provide technical training and guidance to more than 600 planters throughout the year, leading to an increase in radish planting area in the surrounding regions to over 15,000 acres. By integrating machinery such as rotary tillers, radish automatic harvesters, radish washing machines, and high-density radish planting technologies, the campus has significantly improved radish production efficiency and yield.
It is reported that Nanjing Agricultural University, leveraging its disciplinary strengths, has had 10 science and technology campuses supported for construction by three national departments, covering 8 major crop varieties such as rice, soybeans, and pears. Since 2022, a total of 3 science and technology campuses have successively been awarded the title of "Most Beautiful Science and Technology Campus."
