As early autumn arrives, the lingering heat in the Jinsha River's dry-hot valley is met with over 300 mu of soft-seed pomegranates in Dongpo Dai Township, Wuding County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, gradually turning a festive red. Amid the orchards, the busy figures of workers picking, sorting, and boxing the fruit paint a vibrant picture of the harvest season.
Diverging from previous years, local growers have adopted a scientific mix of early, mid, and late-season varieties. This strategy extends the pomegranate supply window from late June all the way to the Mid-Autumn Festival, successfully sidestepping the price competition of the peak harvest period. It has carved out a distinctive industrial path defined by offering unique produce when others don't and superior quality when they do.
Blessed with the unique microclimate of the Jinsha River's dry-hot valley—ample sunlight, abundant heat, and convenient water access—Dongpo Township has cultivated soft-seed pomegranates since their introduction in 2015. Over a decade of meticulous farming has stabilized the planting area at over 300 mu, with main varieties including Hong Ruyi, Tunisian, and Tianshi Hong. This natural greenhouse advantage allows Dongpo's pomegranates to hit the market about half a month earlier than traditional production areas like Huili in Sichuan and Yuanmou, creating an irreplaceable time advantage for seizing market opportunities.
In Puzhaotian Village, Dongpo Village Committee, the 80-plus mu pomegranate orchard of Chen Zhengliang, a party member leader in wealth creation and village head, functions as a living variety testing ground. With 11 years of planting expertise, he has meticulously orchestrated a market rhythm of early varieties capturing the first sales, mid-season ones driving volume, and late ones commanding premium prices. The Hong Ruyi and Liuyue Hong varieties take the lead around June 20th each year, shipped to Huili in Sichuan for wholesale at up to 10 yuan per kilogram. By mid-July, the mainstay Tunisian variety follows, with stable early-season wholesale prices of 5 to 7 yuan per kilogram, primarily sold to the Sichuan and Chongqing regions. Meanwhile, the late-season Heizi Suan and the newly developed Heimeigui varieties target the Mid-Autumn Festival gifting market, with projected prices also reaching 10 yuan per kilogram. "Selling from late June to the Mid-Autumn Festival, with different varieties staggered in time, ensures good prices across the board," Chen Zhengliang said with a smile.
Notably, through years of grafting and improvement, Chen Zhengliang has successfully cultivated an exclusive new variety named Heimeigui. This pomegranate features an orange-red skin, seeds that are red with an orange tint, and a flavor profile of nine parts sweet to one part tart. It boasts thick, juicy flesh, a moderate fruit size, and compact seeds, offering significantly better storage and transport tolerance than common varieties, thereby reducing logistics losses. Currently, this variety is exclusively trial-planted by him in the township and is viewed by many buyers as a potential dark horse.
The refined development of the pomegranate industry has become a cornerstone for increasing local incomes. According to estimates, the township's 300-plus mu of pomegranates yield an average of about 1.5 tons per mu, with annual total output value stabilizing between 2.2 million and 2.4 million yuan. Through land transfers and employment opportunities, the industry's benefits extend to over 300 farming households. During the harvest season, workers earn between 3,000 and 3,600 yuan per month; for major growers, the bagging and picking processes alone require nearly 20,000 yuan in labor costs each season. Bai Cong, a grower in Pingdi Village, saw his 6 mu of pomegranates this year flourish with abundant rainfall and superior quality, with the best plots exceeding 8,000 yuan per mu in output value—a testament to the season's bountiful joy.
Today, soft-seed pomegranates have become a signature advantageous industry in Dongpo Dai Township and a robust pillar for rural revitalization. Situated within a key area of the provincial-level Jinsha River Dry-Hot Valley Ecological Belt development, Dongpo's explorations and practices align closely with key tasks outlined in the Yunnan Province Dry-Hot Valley Ecological Belt Construction Implementation Plan, such as enriching the early, mid, and late-maturing variety systems to create off-peak market advantages and strengthening the benefit-sharing mechanisms that link farmers to industries. This path charts a distinctive course toward agricultural prosperity tailored to local conditions.