Lijiang Modern Flower Industry Park, flower farmers display freshly picked roses.

People's Daily reporter Li Faxing

Can you plant roses on the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau?

On the afternoon of March 19, General Secretary Xi Jinping came to Lijiang Modern Flower Industrial Park in Yunnan Province. In the rose planting area, the General Secretary learned about the soilless cultivation technology of smart greenhouses and had cordial conversations with villagers and technicians on the scene.

"In the past, when planting a hoe, now when planting flowers, they use scissors." Zhang Ying from Wenzhi Community, Gucheng District, Lijiang City came to a greenhouse full of lilac roses to learn flower planting techniques. "There are some requirements for cutting flowers. When cutting, the roots of 3 to 5 cm should be retained to allow the flowers to grow better. The branches except the main rhizomes should be cut off to ensure that the flowers are sufficiently nutritious."

Save whatever is cut, this is the skill taught by Yang Jia, the technical director of the industrial park.

Yang Jia has been engaged in the flower industry for more than 10 years, bringing the most advanced foreign planting technology, facilities and excellent varieties here. Five years ago, Yang Jia was hesitant to invest in planting in Lijiang, which is more than 2,300 meters above sea level.

There are challenges in planting flowers on the plateau: Guifeng Community, the ancient city area where the industrial park is located, is about 800 meters higher than the Jade Emperor Top of the main peak of Mount Tai. The temperature is relatively low and requires high-end greenhouse temperature control technology, but heating will increase the planting cost; and the flower growth cycle is slightly longer, affecting yield.

But the plateau planting also has advantages: the sunshine time in Lijiang is more than 2,400 hours throughout the year, with high altitude and strong ultraviolet rays, making the flowers more colorful; the temperature difference between day and night makes the buds larger and the branches thicker; although the growth period is slightly longer, the flowers wither slowly, and the bottle insertion period also extends.

"We must make a misalignment with Kunming and other central Yunnan regions, focusing on the high-end flower market." After careful calculations, Yang Jia decided to settle in Lijiang Modern Flower Industrial Park.

The first step is to build a greenhouse. In a high-standard greenhouse of 350,000 square meters, water and fertilizer pipelines and heating equipment are laid, and sensors are everywhere. Water and fertilizer are warm and humid, and are all reliant on automatic collection. If the light value exceeds the predetermined value, the greenhouse will automatically shade it; if the water and fertilizer are short of, the system will automatically proportion according to the preset data.

The second step is to choose varieties. The 40,000 square meters greenhouses were initially delivered, and only 10,000 square meters were planted in the first batch, and three categories: gerbera, rose and calla lily were planted. It turned out that the quality of the planted gerbera was not ideal. Rose and calla lily are well adapted to the natural conditions of large temperature difference between day and night, strong ultraviolet rays and long-lasting light in Lijiang, and have become the main recommended varieties of the base.

Technical watering, variety checks, and careful care of flowers have grown higher value. "Planting the same variety of fresh cut flowers, the output value of ordinary plastic greenhouses is about 60,000 yuan per mu, while our greenhouses are as high as 300,000 yuan." Yang Jia introduced that high-quality flower varieties require strict planting conditions and require more accurate water, fertilizer, temperature, humidity, and light intensity control, and ordinary greenhouses cannot be planted. In addition, more precise management and maintenance can also improve the yield and quality of flowers.

Under the leadership of the park, there are 11 large-scale flower production and operation enterprises in the Gucheng District, with a flower planting area of ​​6,400 mu, and more than 40 million fresh cut flowers produced, with an output value of 291 million yuan. Departing from Lijiang Airport, the second largest airport in Yunnan Province, the flowers "climb" all over the world. Of these, 40% are exported overseas.

The income of villagers has increased significantly. On this beautiful production line, 1,500 industrial workers are active among them, including budding, pruning, picking, sorting and packaging. "The wind cannot blow, the rain cannot be wet, and the flowers are wrapped when smelling the fragrance of flowers." After Guifeng Community villager He Guozhen transferred his 10 acres of land to the park, he worked on the packaging production line and calculated the money by counting pieces. The family of three is working in the park, including land transfer funds and work income, as well as dividends from the village at the end of the year, and the family's annual income exceeds 100,000 yuan.

The per capita disposable income of permanent residents in Guifeng Community increased from less than 10,000 yuan in 2016 to nearly 30,000 yuan in 2024; the village collective income increased from 38,000 yuan in 2019 to 364,000 yuan in 2024.

The surrounding villages also benefited from processing and eating roses, developing chrysanthemum sauce, setting up farmhouses, opening homestays and inns, organizing flower picking, and experiencing the production of flower cakes. The industrial chain extends like branches.

"Holding flowers in the left hand and carrying vegetables in the right hand", in Yunnan, this is a common romantic life. In 2024, Yunnan's fresh cut flowers produced 20.6 billion branches, with 380,000 direct employees engaged in flower planting, sorting and packaging, logistics and transportation, flower e-commerce and other industries, and more than 1 million indirect employment. The "romantic economy" is growing into a "beautiful industry" with a comprehensive output value of 100 billion yuan.