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Tech-driven sugarcane farming boosts yields, cuts costs in Guangxi_我的网站

双色球

A | (ECNS) -- At the "Sweet Light" modern sugarcane industrial park in Quli Town, Fusui County, in Chongzuo, south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, sugarcane varieties including Guitang 44, Yunzhe 081609, Guitang 76, Zhongtang 3, and Zhongfu 1 are thriving, with most stalks standing more than three meters tall. The park rotates several varieties and plants them in separate zones to keep yields stable and the fields ecologically resilient. Yang Xue, who has worked in the sugarcane industry for eight years and now runs an agritech company, has watched the shift from farming by experience to farming by data. Virus-free seedlings and the cultivation methods that go with them can extend ratoon cropping from three years to about five, he said, with germination rates reaching 95%. "In Chongzuo, per-hectare sugarcane yield used to be around 60 metric tonnes. With new varieties, improved cultivation methods, and planting models, yields have now risen to 72 metric tonnes," he said. To manage the park's 333 hectares of contiguous fields, Yang's team has installed a smart irrigation system that combines water, fertilizer, and pesticide application. It can be run from a computer or a mobile app, with irrigation timing, flow, and volume set precisely. One worker can now cover more than 67 hectares. The system has since been upgraded to a dual-pipe design, Yang said, allowing water, fertilizer, and pesticides to be applied together and accurately. Annual electricity costs have fallen from 1,200 yuan (about $168) per hectare to 750 yuan (about $105). Four workers can now fertilize 40 hectares in a day, work that previously took 30 workers to cover less than seven hectares. Mechanized harvesting has cut costs as well. Cutting and loading by hand costs more than 16,500 yuan per hectare, based on a yield of 105 metric tons per hectare and a rate of 160 yuan per metric ton. With machine harvesting, farmers receive a state subsidy of about 3,000 yuan per hectare and pay only 750 to 1,200 yuan for the service. The park also returns chopped stalks to the fields, saving another 450 to 600 yuan per hectare in fertilizer. The Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences (CATAS) has been working with the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences and other institutions on variety improvement, seedling propagation, pest control, green cultivation, and mechanical harvesting. Wu Qibin, a researcher at the Sugarcane Research Center of CATAS's Institute of Tropical Bioscience and Biotechnology, said Guangxi is China's core sugarcane-producing region, with more than 800,000 hectares under cultivation and over 60% of national sugar output. The industry is now pursuing two main goals, he said: breeding high-quality varieties suited to machine harvesting, and developing specialized machinery matched to those varieties. (By Tang Yuxian) 。 A powerful Monday morning earthquake has killed at least 111 and injured 87 in the west part of Colombia. Colombia's President Abelardo de la Espriella, who came to office just three days before the earthquake, declared a state of emergency to expedite funding for the quake recovery with a plan to visit the disaster zone. "I am at the forefront of the situation. It pains me deeply what the families and affected regions are going through," he posted on X. According to information provided by Colombian officials by mid-afternoon, the destruction included 1,575 damaged homes, 37 homes completely destroyed, 61 collapsed buildings, scores of damaged centers of health, education and community, as well as 18 damaged roads and six airports. Airports in Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago and Buenaventura suffered structural damage, and their flight operations were suspended, according to Colombia's Civil Aviation Authority. The tremor was felt in Colombia's capital Bogota, which is about 400 kilometers from the epicenter, setting off alarms that prompted people to evacuate many buildings as a precaution. "At this time there are no reports of injuries or structural damage, only some cracks in buildings," Bogota Mayor Carlos Galan posted on X. The earthquake damaged the region's major cities including Pereira, Quibdo, Manizales and Cali. Nubia Carolina Cordoba-Curi, governor of the Choco region, posted on X on Monday morning that "in the capital Quibdo there are injuries and severe damage to buildings". She posted an update at 2 pm that 12 people were confirmed dead and 84 injured in Choco. Other local authorities reported at least 40 deaths in the Risaralda region and 27 deaths in the Valle del Cauca region. Rescue efforts to save people buried under the debris is ongoing. According to the Colombia Geological Service, the earthquake epicenter was in San Jose del Palmar, Choco. It had a magnitude of 7.4 and a depth of approximately 103 km, making it the strongest earthquake recorded in Colombia in the last decade. The earthquake was felt by neighboring countries Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama. It was followed by several aftershocks with magnitudes between 2.8 and 4.8, according to the agency. The agency said that it's common for this region to experience earthquakes of considerable magnitudes due to activities associated with the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate. Near the end of June, Venezuela was struck by two earthquakes — with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5 — that were only 39 seconds apart. More than 6,000 people were killed, and tens of thousands of people remain missing under the debris. 。