News
A Thriving Orchard
May
Kwail County in South Hwanghae Province is a leading fruit producer in the DPRK. It has more than 20 fruit farms, which turn out various kinds of delicious fruits, a pomological institute and a pomicultural college.
Orchard brims with sweet fragrance of fruit flowers
Fruit farms in the county sprawl over several thousand hectares. The farms are filled with the fragrance of flowers of apple, pear, peach, apricot and other fruit trees.
They channel efforts into raising the fertility rate of fruit trees in the blooming period and protecting fruit trees from damages by pests and natural disasters.
Last year, the county increased the unit-area yield of fruits by cultivating the trees in line with the scientific and technical requirements even in the face of such unfavourable conditions of a long spell of dry weather and high temperature. It has laid a solid foundation for producing superior strains of fruit tree saplings of various kinds, including dwarf apple trees, in conformity with its local features. As a result, it has opened up a bright prospect for increasing production every year by planting millions of trees for the replacement of old trees and rootstock cultivation.
“People call our county, a large fruit producer thickly covered with fruit trees, a ‘thriving’ orchard in the vast area of 40 km. This year, too, we are redoubling our efforts to attain the higher goal of fruit production,” says the chief engineer of the Kwail County Rural Economy Committee.
Scientific and intensive fruit farming
Fruit farms across the county are creating orchards according to a long-term plan and cultivating fruit trees on a scientific and technical basis, thereby conducting fruit farming more scientifically and intensively. Based on a detailed analytic data of soil, they have set up a scientific manuring system and improved the nutritive conditions of fruit trees by raising the soil fertility. They are making efforts to plant fruit trees on the right soil according to the cultivar.
At the same time, they are normalizing the production of hukposan and other organic fertilizers and various kinds of agrochemicals at their production bases. Pig farms in the farms and households increase compost production and raise such domestic animals as cow, pig, goat and rabbit in larger numbers, with a view to establishing a food production cycle of fruit farming and animal husbandry.
At present, the fruit farms are applying agrochemicals and plowing fields by raising the rate of performance of tractors and other machines.
To be directly responsible for scientific fruit farming
The pomological institute specializes in breeding and cultivation of fruit trees, and the pomicultural college brings up talented technicians who would shoulder fruit growing.
The institute grew saplings of superior species of fruit trees and registered a success in improving the cultivation methods, thus rendering a contribution to enabling the county to surpass the peak-year level in production last year.
It has laid the foundations for minimizing the damage from pests on the basis of pest monitoring through meteorological observation and putting the cultivation of fruit trees on a scientific footing, set up a unified commanding system for each workteam to conduct scientific fruit farming as suited to the weather conditions, and introduced into thousands of hectares the newly-developed microbial composite fertilizer and cellulose-decomposing bacteria. The institute is now focusing on developing high-yielding species, liquid nutrient, fructification accelerator, nutrition enricher and other technologies.
The pomicultrual college, founded in October 1958, trains talents of the practical type. Every year, it brings up technicians specializing in pomology, forest management, stock-breeding, foodstuff-processing, crop cultivation, information technology and mechanical engineering for the farms in South Hwanghae Province. It is innovating the contents and methods of education with the main emphasis put on bringing about a radical overhaul of the educational conditions and environment in line with the demands of the new century and training competent persons adapted to the reality.
Present-day Kwail County, which boasts of a thriving orchard on the 25-mile stretch with sweet fragrance of fruit flowers and is thickly wooded with fruit trees, promises a rich harvest.
