As the golden days of September unfold, the arrival of the ninth China Farmers' Harvest Festival on September 23rd draws near, and the apple orchards lining the banks of the Xihan River in Lixian, Longnan, have ripened to a deep red just in time. The county's 605,000 mu of apple cultivation has officially entered its picking season, with an anticipated output of 700,000 tons and a total industrial chain value of 6.85 billion yuan. The hillsides are painted red, the branches are heavy with crimson fruit, and even the air carries the sweet aroma of apples—this sea of red serves as the perfect prelude to the harvest festival, while the baskets overflowing with sweetness provide the most reassuring foundation for local fruit growers.
Wandering through the orchards, workers under the apple trees in Jiedi Village, Yongxing Town, are bustling with activity, their hands never idle. The bright red fruits weigh down the branches so heavily that pickers must stand on their tiptoes and crane their necks to reach the largest and most lustrous apples at the top. Zhao Fuye, a local woman, works with remarkable dexterity, smoothly picking, loading baskets, and hauling them onto trucks in one fluid motion. Straightening up and wiping the sweat from her brow with her sleeve, she cheerfully calculates her earnings: "My home is just a short bike ride away, about ten minutes. I come in the morning and leave in the afternoon, earning 120 yuan a day, plus meals and lodging are covered. From September through the end of October, almost two months, I can earn seven or eight thousand yuan just from orchard work. In the past, I'd have to pack my bags and head off to work in another city, leaving the kids and elderly behind; now the orchard is right at my doorstep, so I can earn money and look after my family at the same time—nothing gets neglected." Around Jiedi Village alone, dozens of workers like her are employed during the picking season, leaving no idle hands across the neighboring villages.
On the other side of the orchard, Zhao Ying, head of Lixian Lixiangdang E-commerce Co., Ltd., crouches beneath a tree, plucks an apple, and takes a crisp bite, the satisfying crunch audible. "Taste it—thin skin, thick flesh, and plenty of sugar. That's not just talk; it's a gift from this land." He reels off a series of figures for the reporter: the cooperative cultivates 400 mu of apples, with an expected yield of over 1,000 tons this year and an output value surpassing 5 million yuan. Mid-conversation, his phone buzzes—a buyer from out of town calling to push for delivery: "The first batch is already booked! Get your shipments ready!" Explaining why their apples are so sought after, Zhao counts on his fingers: "Lixian is situated in the upper valley of the Xihan River, with high altitude, abundant sunshine, and a wide temperature difference between day and night—that's what makes our apples so sweet. 'Lixian Apple,' a national geographic indication product, is a sure sell anywhere." But a decade ago, the story was completely different—growers used to wait by the roadside for buyers, forced to accept whatever price they offered, and in lean years, a basket of apples couldn't even fetch a bag of fertilizer. Today, goods reach markets nationwide, and the price is in their own hands; only now does apple farming truly pay off.
Over at the Lixian Qinyuan Yugu Planting and Breeding Farmers' Cooperative orchard, manager Bai Yalong is squatting under a tree, carefully inspecting each freshly picked apple and tossing back any that fall short of size. "This year, with balanced rainfall and ample sunlight, the fruit is generally a size bigger than usual," he remarks. He notes that old orchards, with sparse tree spacing, produce just three to four thousand jin per mu and the fruit shape is often irregular; but the newly established dwarf rootstock dense-planting orchards, with shorter trees, wider rows, and better light penetration, can yield up to ten thousand jin per mu, with larger, better-colored fruit that earns thumbs-up from buyers.
The 605,000 mu is not just a number—it represents an 60-kilometer-long "apple corridor" stretching along the Xihan River and its tributaries, covering 14 townships and 234 administrative villages. Since the first saplings were introduced in 1952, the people of Lixian have been cultivating apples for over 70 years, growing from a few scattered trees around homesteads into a thriving industry that blankets the mountains and valleys. Today, the county has established fruit cold storage facilities, alongside sorting centers and packaging and transport teams, creating a seamless chain of planting, purchasing, storage, processing, and sales, with each link adding value to the apples.
One apple has turned a stretch of land red with prosperity, one apple has enriched the lives of its people, and one apple has woven together an entire industrial chain. From peddling baskets by the roadside to shipping goods across the country, from selling by the basket wholesale to pricing per piece, every transformation of Lixian's apples marks a step forward for this land. As the autumn equinox approaches, the harvest is within sight, and the crimson apples along the Xihan River shine bright—red stands for a thriving industry, and sweetness reflects the hearts of the people. This vivid hue is Lixian's most passionate tribute to the harvest festival.
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