In recent days, at the sweet potato cultivation base in Dongzhou Village, Machun Town, Gaoping City, Shanxi Province, excavators have been actively working in the fields. With mechanical arms moving up and down, sweet potatoes are emerging from the soil, covered in dirt. Villagers and volunteers are energetically engaged in cutting, sorting, cleaning, boxing, and transporting. Dongzhou Village has planted sweet potatoes across 500 acres. Continuous rain has increased soil moisture, and if not harvested promptly, it could affect the quality and storage period of the sweet potatoes. Therefore, Machun Town has coordinated efforts with various enterprises, employing a strategy of "mechanical efficiency for urgent harvests and manual labor for safe storage." They deployed multiple excavators and transportation vehicles, forming a harvesting team of over 40 individuals to efficiently advance the sweet potato harvesting work.

"The sweet potatoes suffer from waterlogging; if we don’t harvest soon, they will all spoil. We are grateful for the help from enterprises; these volunteers come daily to assist in the urgent harvest, and multiple excavators are working in rotation, which not only boosts harvesting efficiency but also minimizes sweet potato damage," explained Lian Yanxia, Party Branch Secretary and Village Committee Director of Dongzhou. The local community is fully committed to the harvest, expecting to complete the task by the end of the month.

While harvesting sweet potatoes, Machun Town is also actively integrating resources to ensure timely drying of the produce. They keep a close eye on weather changes, advising farmers on the urgent harvesting of sweet potatoes, corn, soybeans, and other crops, and connecting them with crawler harvesters and drying equipment to effectively address challenges in harvesting and storage, ensuring that the autumn grains are safely stored.

Similarly, in Houzhuang Village, Shimei Township, Gaoping City, villagers are seizing the favorable weather following the rain to organize apple harvesting efforts to ensure a bountiful crop. In the orchard of Minfeng Fruit Professional Cooperative, villagers work in small groups, carefully picking ripe apples and placing them into baskets, with split apples separated for special handling. "The recent continuous rain makes apples prone to splitting and rotting. We are taking advantage of the breaks in the rain to harvest apples efficiently," said villager Song Jiuxiang.

Over the years, Houzhuang Village has leveraged its favorable geographic location to develop the apple industry, establishing the Minfeng Fruit Professional Cooperative which has planted 550 acres of apple trees. Technician Huang Gongzuo from the cooperative stated that they first sort, transport, package, and store the harvested apples to ensure they reach the market in the best quality, maximizing profits for the farmers.

At the same time, large-scale growers in Gaoping City are making the most of the clear weather following the rain to accelerate the harvesting and drying of corn using crawler combine harvesters and drying machines. With the weather turning clear after rain, corn harvesting operations are proceeding in an orderly manner within Wanghebei Village on Beicheng Street, Gaoping City. Skilled operators expertly drive the crawler combine harvesters back and forth, quickly harvesting and threshing rows of corn, with golden kernels flowing into waiting trucks via conveyor pipes, and then transported to drying towers for concentrated drying to effectively prevent mold and ensure the quality of autumn grains.

In the corn drying plant, various machines are humming with activity as workers busy themselves sending the freshly harvested corn into the dryers. After removing impurities and drying, the corn can be stored. Zheng Haiqiang, the head of the drying plant, reported, "The harvested corn has a moisture content of about 24.7%. It requires 12 hours in the dryer to reduce the moisture content to below 15% before it can be stored to prevent spoilage."

This year, Gaoping City has planted a total of 443,000 acres of corn. To ensure efficient harvesting, the city's Agricultural and Rural Affairs Bureau has formed five specialized technical guidance teams, coordinated seven grain drying points, and equipped four emergency harvesting teams with crawler harvesters to provide convenience to farmers in need. Additionally, Gaoping City is actively coordinating machinery and manpower, organizing over 500 agricultural machines for this year's autumn harvest, fully committed to safeguarding the people's "grain bags." So far, approximately 110,000 acres of corn have been harvested, with over 350 tons of grain dried.