In this harvest season, large areas of saline alkali land in the Yellow River Delta in Dongying, Shandong are covered with ripe crops. "There will be more production this year." Yu Zhenye, the Party Branch Secretary of Gaogang Village, Guangrao County, Dongying, Shandong, said joyfully on the 19th, as he stood at the edge of the field and looked at the harvester processing through the corn field.

Dongying, located in the Yellow River Delta, has a saline alkali land area of more than 3,400,000mu, including 1,960,000mu of saline cultivated land. By means of water dilution, land ploughing and straw returning, the saline cultivated land has been improved into soybean-maize strip compound planting base, and now the yield of maize per mu can reach 700kg.

Not far from the Gaogang Village, 4 sets of drying equipment are working at Zhenlong Agricultural Machinery Farmer Cooperative, which can dry 1,000t of corn a day. Cao Zhenlong, Manager of the Cooperative, said that the Cooperative hosts 60,000mu of land in neighboring villages. Since the improvement of saline alkali land cannot be achieved without water and electricity, the county power supply company has laid underground cables to provide electricity to the wells, which can water during droughts and drain during floods, saving water, fertilizer, and labor. Cao also mentioned that the power supply company has supported them in establishing an agricultural machinery monitoring and dispatching platform. Farmers can place orders on their phones and specify the required machinery, type of operation and location, and agricultural machinery operators will provide services after receiving orders.

Not only food crops, cash crops such as tomatoes, grapes, quinoa, etc. can also be planted on saline alkali land, which has led to the development of leisure agriculture, rural tourism and other forms of development, promoted agricultural efficiency and increased income.

In Dongyun Family Farm, a farm located in Dongguanzhuang Village, Dingzhuang Sub-district, Agricultural High-tech Industrial Demonstration Area of the Yellow River Delta of Shandong Province, strings of grapes hang under dense green branches and leaves. Manager Liu Dongmei said: "The salt content of the land here is 2‰-4‰. We have bred saline-resistant grape varieties and planted 200mu on a trial basis this year, with yields controlled at 1,500-2,000kg per mu and the picking price at CNY 50-60 per kilogram."

From "improving land to adapt to seeds" to "improving seeds to adapt to land", comprehensive utilization measures for saline alkali land have been continuously enriched. One of the directions is breeding saline-alkali tolerant crop varieties and developing the seed industry for saline alkali land. Currently, multiple research institutes have collected and preserved 21,000 samples of saline-alkali tolerant germplasm resources in the Agricultural High-tech Industrial Demonstration Area of the Yellow River Delta of Shandong Province, and have initially bred 45 new strains.

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Company Name: Dongying Government of the People's Republic of China
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City: Dongying
State: Shandong
Country: China
Website: http://www.dongying.gov.cn/