Recently, the first batch of "Shengtian Baizhu" milk fruit corn was harvested at the Longping High-tech Sweet Corn Industry Chain Demonstration Base in Shijiao Town, Qingcheng District. Walking into the base, vast fields of sweet corn sway in the wind, with plump ears hanging from the stalks, filling the air with a fresh, sweet fragrance. Farmers are busy harvesting the fruit corn.
A farmer harvesting the corn smiled and said, "The sweetness of this variety can reach 18 to 22 degrees. It doesn't need cooking; you can eat it directly, and it bursts with juice in your mouth." The on-site person-in-charge at the base explained that harvesting is primarily done through meticulous manual picking to ensure the ears remain intact. "Picking in the early morning when temperatures are low preserves moisture best. After sorting, pre-cooling, and packaging, the corn can be shipped to supermarkets in the Greater Bay Area by noon." Leveraging a convenient transportation network, Qingcheng's fresh corn achieves "morning harvest, noon delivery," maximizing the retention of its fresh sweetness.
Qingcheng District, located on the northern edge of the Greater Bay Area, boasts a superior location and a solid agricultural foundation, making it a veritable "vegetable basket" and "fruit plate" for the region. As consumers increasingly demand freshness, safety, and taste in their ingredients, the market for fresh produce has experienced explosive growth. The establishment of the Longping High-tech Sweet Corn project represents a crucial step for Qingcheng in seizing opportunities from consumption upgrades and developing high-value-added specialty agriculture.
It is understood that this project adopts an operational model of "government leadership, enterprise direction, and multi-party collaboration." Upon full operation, the primary agricultural output value in the first year is projected to reach 68 million yuan. Village collectives are expected to see an average annual income increase of over 2 million yuan, with more than 200 jobs created. Participating farmers are anticipated to gain an average annual income increase of 45,000 yuan, promoting local employment, stable income growth, and ensuring the benefits of the specialty industry reach thousands of households.
This base is a key modern agricultural benchmark project developed by Qingcheng District. The total planned area is 20,000 mu, with the first phase covering over 3,000 mu. The focus is on building three core bases: new variety display and evaluation, rice-corn rotation demonstration, and high-quality fruit corn supply. The goal is to establish a closed-loop, full industry chain from seed source to processing.
The project prioritizes technology, standards, and green development. On the seedling cultivation front, the base has constructed a 30-mu intelligent seedling greenhouse, innovatively adopting a "substrate seedling + intelligent control" model equipped with constant temperature and humidity systems and integrated water-fertilizer smart systems. Unlike traditional methods, seedlings cultivated in ecological nutrient substrates develop robust root systems and sturdy stems, with a stable qualification rate above 95%, ensuring high-quality, disease-resistant seedlings from the source.
In production and cultivation, as Guangdong's first fully mechanized demonstration project for large-scale corn planting, the base employs mechanized joint operations for all stages, including plowing, transplanting, and field management, ensuring high efficiency and uniform standards. It also innovatively implements a three-season annual rotation system, using efficient models like "corn-rice-corn" and "rice-corn-corn," which both ensure food security and enhance land output efficiency. In March of this year, corn seedlings completed mechanical transplantation and have now entered the harvest period. In the future, the base will gradually achieve mechanized harvesting to further improve efficiency and guarantee quality.
A relevant official from the Qingcheng District Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau stated, "Developing the fresh corn industry is an important lever for Qingcheng to leverage its resource endowments, connect with the Greater Bay Area market, and advance agricultural supply-side structural reform." It is reported that over the next two years, the project plans to establish two to three 10,000-mu demonstration zones to continuously expand scale. Concurrently, it will accelerate the development of cold chain storage, deep processing, and brand operations to extend the industry chain, increase added value, and foster new business formats such as rural cultural creation, science education research, and leisure picking, promoting the deep integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries.