Strawberries’ conference
Donggang: the best strawberries in China
Regularly referred to as China’s ‘first county’ for strawberries, the city of Donggang – in the country’s north-eastern Liaoning province – has more than 80 years of experience in cultivating the ever-popular berry.
As the most established strawberry production zone in China – itself the world’s largest producer and consumer of strawberries – the crop’s planting area in Donggang continues to expand: even the pandemic marked only a blip in production, as production jumped from 9,867 hectares in 2019 to cover more than 13,300 ha in 2021.
No surprise then that Donggang played host last month to the first China Strawberry Industry Development Conference, a two-day event bringing together the entire strawberry supply chain. On the programme: knowledge exchange, product launches, field visits and networking.
FertiGlobal was there too: we’ve seen some impressive results in Chinese strawberry crops with two of our products, Yinnongwei (Mantus) and Weixiao (Tages). We wanted to share those findings with a wider audience, and what better place than Donggang?
We took the bold step of becoming a co-sponsor of the conference, joining well-known organisations such as Donggang Agricultural and Rural Bureau, the China Horticultural Society Strawberry Branch, and Liaoning Donggang Strawberry Association, to meet more than 600 representatives from 18 provinces and cities across China.
And what a meeting it turned out to be: it’s so encouraging to see our Total Crop Management philosophy, embedded in all our products, receive such good reception whenever we share it with a new audience. Protection of soil, seed, plant, yield or farmer, this crucial aspect is common to every FertiGlobal product. Our products offer protection from beginning to end of a crop’s lifecycle and throughout our customers’ farming businesses.
In both Mantus and Tages are embedded the same innovative, breakthrough technologies – using the best, high quality, bioavailable compounds – that stimulate the crop’s natural defence processes. When we prioritise plant health, we avoid situations that can allow specific problems to develop. Thus there’s no need for individual, specific solutions. It reflects FertiGlobal’s basic tenet – optimising a crop’s yield potential is totally dependent on optimum plant health.
It’s a story that resonated with those at the show, with customers agreeing purchase orders during the event. We’ll look forward to following up with these customers as the season develops: the region produces fruit from November to June, with March through May typically the peak months. Hongyan strawberries are the most famous local variety, thanks to their colour, flavour and consistent quality. They also store well and can be transported long-distances, which is a great advantage towards the end of the season, when they are often the last domestically produced berries available.