New Varieties, New Technologies, New Models Drive Comprehensive Greenhouse Vegetable Development

"The seedlings will be ready for transplanting in about ten days!" On August 29th, in the seedling greenhouse at Shengli Village, Yao Wangzhuang Town, Lunan County, large patches of lettuce seedlings were thriving. Looking at the robust vegetable seedlings, grower Qiu Guosheng explained that his family operates six vegetable greenhouses, growing peppers in spring and lettuce in autumn, with each greenhouse generating over 30,000 yuan in net profit on average.

Yao Wangzhuang Town serves as the core area of Lunan County's vegetable industry, with facility vegetable cultivation covering 26,500 acres and producing 400,000 tons of various vegetables annually. "In recent years, we have continuously optimized our industrial layout, promoting the full-chain development of the vegetable industry from seeding, management, transportation, storage, harvesting to sales, achieving an annual output value exceeding 2 billion yuan," said Huang Zheng, mayor of Yao Wangzhuang Town.

Green, red, and golden yellow... In Qiu Guosheng's phone album, there's a particularly vibrant photo of a vegetable greenhouse. "These are colored peppers, a new variety introduced from Shandong last year," Qiu Guosheng said, noting that introducing and promoting new varieties has steadily increased greenhouse profits.

Quality seeds bring high returns. From Huang Zheng's perspective, variety breeding is the first link in the vegetable industry chain. To enhance economic benefits, it's essential to leverage technology for new variety development and reduce costs through centralized seedling cultivation.

In recent years, relying on "Science Courtyard" initiatives, expert teams from Hebei Province's vegetable industry system, and research institutions, Yao Wangzhuang Town has introduced and promoted over 30 high-quality varieties, including spiral peppers and romaine lettuce. In 2025, 27 new varieties were added, including Zhongnong Cuiyu series cucumbers and Crown peppers, with trial cultivation selecting and promoting disease-resistant, high-yield varieties.

Shifting from "plant what, sell what" to "need what, plant what," Yao Wangzhuang Town has strengthened cooperation with relevant organizations and enterprises, promoting precise alignment between vegetable production and market demand. The town actively develops online ordering and fresh vegetable direct supply services, driving increased income for village collectives and vegetable farmers. Meanwhile, it revitalizes idle land to build high-standard fully automated seedling greenhouses equipped with intelligent temperature control, electric sprinkler systems, and integrated water-fertilizer equipment, accelerating centralized seedling cultivation.

Having established the "menu," it's crucial to cultivate the vegetable gardens well. "Improving cultivation techniques not only enhances production efficiency and product quality in the vegetable industry but also provides a solid foundation for upgrading the industry toward high-end and green development," Huang Zheng said. Yao Wangzhuang Town focuses on the middle segment of the vegetable industry, continuously promoting quality improvement and efficiency enhancement through high-temperature greenhouse sterilization, three-dimensional crop rotation, cellar storage preservation, and organic cultivation methods.

At the clean vegetable processing facility of Hebei Heqing Vegetable Professional Cooperative in Yao Wangzhuang Town, packages of clean vegetables come off the production line, ready for shipment to Beijing. "This project began production in 2024 and represents a supply chain completion project for high-quality development of Yao Wangzhuang Town's vegetable industry," the project manager explained.

To stimulate new momentum in the vegetable industry, Yao Wangzhuang Town uses investment attraction as a key approach, precisely addressing industrial development gaps. The town actively promotes the implementation of Hebei Heqing Vegetable Professional Cooperative's clean vegetable processing project and Hebei Lianzhi Yun fruit and vegetable beverage processing project, creating more diverse pathways for vegetables from farm to table. Simultaneously, it proactively advances the "clean vegetables to Beijing" initiative, establishing one Beijing-surrounding vegetable production base and two Hebei clean vegetable demonstration bases, creating the Qinghe Yan fruit and vegetable wholesale market that integrates product distribution, intelligent information services, and cold-chain logistics functions, helping Yao Wangzhuang vegetables reach markets nationwide.

Through "cooperative + vegetable farmer" and "market + broker" models, Yao Wangzhuang Town has broken the traditional agricultural pattern of individual operations, promoting the formation of strong synergy between over 70 vegetable brokers and 57 professional cooperatives, achieving comprehensive advancement in the vegetable industry from scale to efficiency.