In late autumn, the hawthorn harvest across Jiang County's 100,000 mu has entered its final stage.
Currently, picking in the orchards is largely wrapping up, with most fresh fruit already sorted, sold externally, or stored. Yesterday, reporters visited major hawthorn-producing areas including Xunwang Village in Anyu Town and Zhengchai Village in Nanfan Town, where fruit on the branches was already sparse. Growers were seizing the fine weather to finish the last of the picking, clean up the orchards, and grade and sort the remaining fresh fruit.
This year's favorable climate, with well-balanced sunlight and rainfall, has resulted in an excellent overall crop across the county. The fruit has developed even coloring and plump shapes, with quality surpassing that of normal years.
Grower Zhang Pengfei told reporters that his family has a total of 18 mu of hawthorn trees, all planted with local traditional varieties including Dajinxing and Damianqiu. Picking began in early September and is now essentially complete, with total output of approximately 111,000 jin. Market conditions have been stable this year, and most of the fruit has already been sold successfully. About 5,000 jin remains and is being urgently sorted for delivery to processing plants and buyers.
While traditional processing hawthorn is steadily wrapping up, sales of Jiang County's cultivated fruit hawthorn varieties — Jintianhong and Huangjintian — have also entered their later stage. Jintianhong has a brilliant red color with a sweet-and-tart taste, while Huangjintian hawthorn is golden yellow throughout with soft flesh and higher sweetness. Both can be eaten fresh directly and are primarily marketed through premium gift boxes, supermarkets, and online orders. The paired launch of these two specialty fresh-eating varieties — red fruit and yellow fruit — further enriches the industrial structure through differentiated positioning and extends the sales cycle.
Grower Pan Chang'an told reporters that his family has planted a total of 10 mu of hawthorn, including Jintianhong, Huangjintian, and Tianhongzi varieties. Picking began at the end of August, with concentrated market launches in September. This year, the total output of fruit hawthorn alone exceeded 12,000 jin. These fruit hawthorn varieties are all fresh-eating types — Jintianhong is sweet and refreshing, while Huangjintian is soft and delicately sweet, making them very suitable to eat directly as fruit. Some are purchased by buyers at designated points and shipped to supermarkets and fruit shops in other regions, while others are sold through livestreaming and gift box orders, with a fairly high rate of repeat customers. The staggered sales of traditional processing hawthorn and fresh-eating hawthorn have strengthened our industry's ability to withstand risks. Now that fresh fruit picking is nearing completion, remaining orders are still being continuously shipped.
As harvesting enters its final phase, purchasing and transportation work continues in an orderly manner. Buyers from various regions remain stationed on-site, sorting and receiving goods according to fruit grade. Premium fruit is loaded and shipped first, while processing-grade fruit is sent to food processing enterprises. Premium fresh fruit such as Jintianhong and Huangjintian hawthorn is supplied to fruit wholesale markets and specialty fruit shops nationwide. Well-established trading, storage, and logistics infrastructure ensures smooth circulation of fresh fruit.
A buyer from Shandong told reporters that he has been coming to Jiang County to purchase hawthorn for many consecutive years. This year he arrived at the end of August to receive goods and will continue until the harvest wraps up. He purchases Dajinxing, Damianqiu, and Dawuleng varieties, with processing fruit sent to food factories in various locations. Jiang County hawthorn is very popular in the market due to its distinctive characteristics.
At the same time, local hawthorn professional cooperatives and agricultural development companies continue to provide sales-backstop services. They coordinate with local deep-processing enterprises to stabilize purchasing channels on one hand, while connecting with external buyers, e-commerce platforms, and farm-supermarket direct procurement on the other. For older farmers with limited sales channels, cooperatives provide unified grading, consignment storage, and consignment sales services, making good use of storage and preservation facilities to properly absorb late-season fresh fruit. They also focus on building the Jintianhong and Huangjintian hawthorn specialty fresh fruit brands to expand the high-end fresh fruit market.
The head of Jiang County Yaoteng Agricultural Development Co., Ltd. told reporters that most plots have now completed harvesting and entered the sales wrap-up stage. The company is leveraging multiple channels simultaneously — local processing plants providing guaranteed minimum purchases, external buyers continuously replenishing stock, and e-commerce livestreaming and offline exhibitions running in parallel. With the rational combination of traditional processing hawthorn and fresh-eating varieties like Jintianhong and Huangjintian, staggered market launches, and the continuous extension of the deep-processing chain, fresh fruit absorption channels are sufficient, driving stable income growth for farmers.
On one side, there is the high-volume, steadily selling traditional processing hawthorn; on the other, specialty fresh-eating varieties like Jintianhong and Huangjintian are capturing the premium market. Offline buyer procurement and online gift box sales are working in tandem, while storage preservation and deep processing provide coordinated support. Each red and golden fruit, traveling from branch to market, has become a "prosperity fruit" that drives income growth for the people and supports rural revitalization, painting a picture of bountiful and stable harvest across the autumn landscape of ancient Jiang County.
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