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What have you been up to?

June 18 is Father’s Day, June 21 is the summer solstice, and June 24 is the Dragon Boat Festival. For Father’s Day this year, I received wine as a gift, and the wine accompanied me through two happy dinners.

The rains were plentiful in June, and everything seemed to bode well for a bumper year. I was also in a happy mood, and in late June, I took Po out to play, to avoid the hot weather after the arrival of the summer solstice.

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Source: Meteomanz.com

What’s the crop status?

An occasional rain at the end of May has already made me cheer, but the rain comes and goes quickly. In early June, I invented a new saying at our farm that “three days after the rain stops, the irrigation starts”!

I mentioned that our land doesn’t hold water very well, so if it’s dry for three days in a row, the land starts to show signs of drought.

We turned on the irrigation machine in early June, and we started it in July last year, and August in 2021. It is getting earlier every year!

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Perhaps the universe heard our plea and immediately ushered in a 20-minute shower that eased the drought. The rainfall then lasted for three days and totaled nearly 100mm. After the rain stopped, the cane land was soon dry enough for plough machine…

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The last 30 tons of fertilizer had been fed to the sugarcane, and the sugarcane was bathed in rain and grew tall and straight.

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Marked by this rain, June ushered in a lot of rain. People often refer to dark clouds as a bad omen, but for us, rain is great news.

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The hundreds of mu of sloping land covered with cogon grass… after tillage, sun exposure, manual weeding and chemical weeding the cogon grass was finally gone! However, just after the weeding, good rains came. Although the cost of weeding of – 5 tons of sugarcane (cane farmer’s measurement) was wasted, it was still a good rain.

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What’s your innovation?

I would like to introduce this year’s cane seed cost and performance. The whole stem seeds, valued at 850 yuan/ton, are really good value for money and the growth is very good. One mu of land needs 600 kilograms of seeds, and the seed cost of 510 yuan/mu is also acceptable. (I hectare = 15mu)

In addition, I would also like to introduce our new smart fertigation system. After three consecutive years of drought, it is natural to think about the need of drought risk management. Although the new system has been built, I still hope that the weather will be good and that it will not be put into use.

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Last one to mention are the beans that we grow, which are mainly for our own consumption. Look, I used it to marinate sour beans, and serve with noodles, delicious!

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Xiaoqing Ke

Xiaoqing is the Director of Guangxi Huituo Agriculture Development Co Ltd and has been since he launched the business in March 2016. Farm Size: 307 hectares (758 acres) Xiaoqing Grows: Sugarcane
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