Since early March, the automated seeding production line at the Virus-Free American Ginseng Fruit Seedling Center in Minqin County, Wuwei City, Gansu Province, has been operating at full capacity. Processes such as tray laying, filling, indentation, precision seeding, covering, spraying, and bedding are seamlessly interconnected, resulting in the orderly output of standardized seedling trays. Compared to traditional methods, the center utilizes modern facilities like dual-purpose water-based seedbeds, integrated water-fertilizer equipment, and automated tray-filling assembly lines, effectively reducing cultivation costs and improving seedling survival rates.
As a leading research base in China for American ginseng fruit seedlings, the center employs advanced techniques including stem tip tissue culture, virus-free rapid propagation, and purification rejuvenation. These methods effectively address production challenges like fruit deformities and yield failure, overcoming critical technical bottlenecks in seed sources. Annually, the center can supply enough virus-free seedlings for nearly ten thousand solar greenhouses in the Hexi region of Gansu.
Similarly, the Minqin County Muskmelon Intelligent Seedling Center is equipped with modern devices such as smart sprayers, temperature control systems, and monitoring equipment, creating a high-tech environment for seedling cultivation. Since spring began, the center has focused on meeting seedling demands for the planting season. The entire process, from seed soaking and germination to high-speed sowing, tray stacking in controlled chambers, and nursery cultivation, is automated and standardized. Real-time environmental data is uploaded to a big data platform for precise regulation and scientific management, making agricultural production more efficient, convenient, and sustainable.
The advantages of intelligent seedling cultivation are significant, not only reducing labor costs but also enabling full-process precision management. This shifts melon seedling cultivation from relying on experience to depending on data, and upgrades from manual control to remote management. Modern biological techniques, environmental control technologies, and water-fertilizer management are integrated throughout seedling production, facilitating efficient factory-style rotation and large-scale cultivation. This meets the demand for off-season muskmelon production, laying a solid foundation for enhanced quality and development in the industry.
Minqin County is located in the northeastern part of the Hexi Corridor, downstream of the Shiyang River Basin, situated along the agriculturally prime 38th parallel north. The area benefits from abundant sunshine, significant day-night temperature variations, and clean water and soil, providing excellent conditions for developing specialty high-efficiency agriculture and green organic industries. Local products such as muskmelons, fennel, vegetables, American ginseng fruit, and sand leeks are known for their high quality and volume. The county has been recognized as a "National Major Vegetable Industry County," one of Gansu's first "Organic Product Certification Demonstration Zones," and has been designated as the Hometown of Chinese Muskmelon, Fennel, American Ginseng Fruit, Sand Leek, and Mutton Sheep.
In recent years, Minqin County has vigorously promoted factory-based intelligent seedling cultivation, using technology to empower modern agricultural development. Leveraging its unique location and resources, the county focuses on superior seed selection, quality improvement, and brand building. It continues to deepen industry-academia-research collaboration, accelerating the development of an integrated system for breeding, propagation, and promotion. Efforts are concentrated on breaking through key technical barriers in advantageous specialty industries, driving the agricultural sector towards intensification, scale, and specialization, thereby energizing the rural industry with high-quality seeds and robust seedlings.
Minqin is the largest core production area for thick-skinned sweet melons in Gansu and even the northwest region, as well as a national core area for high-quality muskmelons. It is also the largest region in China for facility-cultivated American ginseng fruit. Local efforts are closely aligned with the goal of improving quality and efficiency in specialty industries, coordinating across the entire chain from planting and processing to sales. High-standard green intelligent seedling bases are being constructed, empowered by technological equipment and digital technologies, accelerating the advancement of the melon and vegetable industries towards standardization, intensification, and branding, injecting strong momentum into comprehensive rural revitalization.
Furthermore, Minqin County continues to strengthen scientific and technological support, having established several research institutions, including a workstation affiliated with the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a comprehensive experimental station with the Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences. These facilities focus on tackling key agricultural technical challenges. Modern information technologies such as the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence, and 5G are actively applied to digitally transform the entire agricultural production chain, continuously improving overall factor productivity. Digital empowerment is driving the acceleration of agricultural transformation towards greater specialization, intensification, and socialization, equipping modern agriculture with technological wings for high-quality development.
This year, Minqin County continues to optimize its specialty industry layout, steadily expanding the planting scale of advantageous crops like muskmelons, American ginseng fruit, and peppers. By combining early, mid, and late-season varieties and coordinating facility-based with open-field production, the county has effectively extended market supply cycles, achieving staggered harvest times and year-round availability. This规模化 and standardized production promotes industrial efficiency increases and growth in farmers' incomes.
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