In the golden autumn season, inside the modern agricultural industrial park on the south bank of Wuliangsuhai in Urad Front Banner, Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, fiery red peppers hang heavily on the branches, and workers weave through the field rows picking, filling buckets, and transporting the harvest, creating a busy scene across the fields.

According to yield measurements, the sauce pepper variety "Beixing No. 1" selected and cultivated in the park reached a per-mu yield of 4,559 kilograms, setting a new record for sauce pepper per-mu yield in Inner Mongolia.

This marks another crop high-yield record broken in Urad Front Banner, following a series of corn records.

Wuliangsuhai is one of China's eight major freshwater lakes, the largest wetland at the same latitude on Earth, and the largest grassland lake in the Yellow River basin, long known as a "Pearl Beyond the Great Wall."

At the pepper planting base in the modern agricultural industrial park on the south bank of Wuliangsuhai, bright red, plump peppers are growing vigorously.

In recent days, workers have been racing against the agricultural calendar to carry out concentrated harvesting.

"This year, the park selected high-yield, high-quality pepper varieties such as 'Honglong 23,' 'Beixing No. 1,' and 'Beixing No. 6,' and also planted some experimental varieties on a trial basis. Relying on scientific field management and standardized planting techniques, the peppers have grown far better than in previous years, achieving dual improvements in both yield and quality. Among them, 'Beixing No. 1' reached a measured per-mu yield of 4,559 kilograms," said Bai Enze, Chairman of Inner Mongolia Hexing Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Co., Ltd.

Liu Jun, Director of the Urad Front Banner Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Technology Extension Center, explained that the park leverages the water, soil, light, and heat resources of the south bank of Wuliangsuhai to continuously carry out cultivated land improvement and soil fertilization to enhance soil fertility. At the same time, it deeply engages with multiple research institutes, adhering to a dual approach of independent breeding and introduced selection, screening pepper varieties with high resistance, high yield, and high color value that are suited to the climate and soil of the Hetao Irrigation District.

"The park has also innovatively implemented scientific and standardized planting models, focusing on experiments with mechanized dense planting for high-yield pepper cultivation, exploring ridge-furrow film planting, flat cultivation, and ridge-furrow film mulching dense planting for high yield, building a mechanized, high-density, high-productivity pepper planting technology system," Liu Jun said.

In park management, technological tools have been widely applied.

"This year, the park introduced autonomous drone field patrols, intelligent pest and disease detection, and smart integrated water-fertilizer precision irrigation systems. It also partnered with research institutes and universities to introduce advanced planting models such as ridging, flat cultivation, and four-row-per-film planting. Through these technologies, both the yield and quality of crops in the park have improved significantly. Calculations show that yields can increase by 10%," said Wang Wenqi, Deputy General Manager of Hexing Agriculture and Animal Husbandry.

Wang Wenqi explained that the park's peppers have now formed a mature dual-direction sales structure, with fresh peppers mainly sold to Sichuan, Guizhou, and other places for sauce processing, while some dried peppers are exported to India, Europe, and the United States for widespread use in natural pigment extraction.

In recent years, Urad Front Banner has continuously carried out seed improvement research and integrated technology demonstrations, repeatedly setting new highs for crop per-mu yields in Inner Mongolia.

In 2023, the corn demonstration field in Dashetai Town broke the 1,400-kilogram per-mu threshold for Inner Mongolia corn for the first time. In 2024, the hundred-mu corn demonstration field in Dashetai Town reached a per-mu yield of 1,473.27 kilograms, while the ten-thousand-mu contiguous corn field reached 1,266.2 kilograms per mu, once again rewriting the Inner Mongolia corn yield record. In 2025, the hundred-mu and thousand-mu corn fields in Sudulun Town and Erdenbulag Sumu reached per-mu yields of 1,480.34 kilograms and 1,421.77 kilograms respectively, setting a new Inner Mongolia corn high-yield record for the third time.

This year, the park's pepper varieties broke the sauce pepper per-mu yield record, achieving a new breakthrough in high yields from grain crops to specialty cash crops.

Liu Jun noted that behind each new record is the support of technological forces such as drone field patrols and smart integrated water-fertilizer precision irrigation systems, as well as the combined efforts of universities and research institutes, improved farmland quality, seed screening, integrated methods, and multi-party coordination.

"From farming by experience to deep cultivation by data, Urad Front Banner continues to optimize its planting structure, promote advanced planting techniques, extend agricultural industry chains, broaden domestic and international sales channels, and enhance the profitability of specialty crop cultivation, turning high-yield records achieved through research into tangible income for farmers, allowing the effects of technology-empowered agriculture to continue to emerge," Liu Jun said.