Taxue Horticultural Farm

Taxue Horticultural Farm

Taxue Horticultural Farm is a cultural tourism attraction.

Guixi City’s Taxue Horticultural Farm is a large-scale, centralized, and well-managed early-ripening pear production base in southern China, featuring a comprehensive variety of cultivars. The farm has a population of over 3,500, including more than 1,200 agricultural workers. With over 50 years of experience in cultivating early-ripening pears, as early as 1946, former Corps Commander Huang Wei and renowned democratic figure Peng Chengwan established a private farm here to grow pear trees. By the early 1970s, the farm had over 100,000 pear trees, producing more than 4 million jin (approximately 2 million kg) of fresh pears annually, with over 2 million jin sold—making it a representative large-scale pear orchard base in the Jiangnan region and one of China’s earliest exporters of fresh pears to Hong Kong, Macau, and Southeast Asian countries. New pear varieties introduced at different periods by the farm have achieved excellent economic returns and served as models for others. For example, varieties such as Jinshui No.1 and Jinshui No.2, and Huanghua introduced and cultivated in the 1970s have now spread across the province and beyond, becoming leading cultivars in various fruit-producing areas. For instance, Jinshui No.2 has been extensively planted in Dingnan County, Ganzhou, and Huanghua in Jinxi County, Fuzhou. Currently, the farm cultivates fruit on over 8,000 mu (approximately 533 hectares) of land, including more than 6,000 mu of early-ripening pears, yielding over 12 million jin of pears per year. Its products are popular in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and other regions. In 2004, the farm alone earned a net profit of over 1 million yuan from fruit sales, with the average per capita fruit income of its workers reaching 3,500 yuan. Today, the farm is widely known as a “fruit hometown,” especially renowned for its “Taxue” pears. In 2001, Taxue Jinshui No.2 pears were rated as high-quality early-ripening pears at the National High-Quality Early-Ripening Pear Evaluation and Technical Information Exchange Conference; in 2002, Taxue early-ripening honey pears were listed among the province’s top 20 high-quality agricultural products; in 2003, the “Qingxiang” and “Cuilv” varieties submitted by the farm won gold and silver awards, respectively, at the Second National High-Quality Early-Ripening Pear Evaluation. In the same year, the “Taxue” honey pear trademark was recognized as a provincial famous brand.

While developing its own operations, since the early 1990s the farm has gradually helped surrounding towns develop their early-ripening pear industries. To date, seven towns in the city cultivate “Taxue” early-ripening pears on over 60,000 mu of land. Starting in 2002, leveraging its technical expertise, the farm implemented a support strategy of “multiple team members per town, multiple households per member” for neighboring fruit-growing towns, establishing practical assistance measures. This approach has played a radiating and guiding role, benefiting over 8,000 farming households.

While ensuring the efficiency of fruit production, the farm has made full use of its inherent advantages in fruit forest resources and strong horticultural technology by proposing a development strategy of “playing the eco-card and developing sightseeing orchards.” In 2004, through multi-channel fundraising, the farm invested 8 million yuan to designate over 500 mu of orchard land within its area for building an ecological sightseeing orchard. By the end of 2004, the first phase of the ecological park project had been completed, with major construction projects including:

1. Hardening and greening of the Baihehu–Taxue Ecological Park tourist access road, with a total length of 4.5 kilometers.

2. Granite sculpture and landscaping at the entrance of the tourist access road.

3. Pear Street: 188 meters long and 15–50 meters wide, displaying various pear varieties along both sides.

4. Pear Orchard Square: oval-shaped, covering an area of 1,680 square meters.

5. Entrance Square: semi-circular, covering an area of 2,530 square meters.

6. Parking lot: semi-circular, covering an area of 6,200 square meters.

7. Fruit Trading Service Center: with a construction area of 1,500 square meters, providing services such as trade negotiation, catering, accommodation, and shopping.

8. Chenglu Terrace: circular, covering an area of 1,200 square meters, usable as an open-air dining spot and also serving as a performance stage.

9. Commercial Street: 500 meters long and 21 meters wide.

10. Hardening of roads within the ecological park area: 3.5 kilometers in length, forming a loop throughout the ecological park.

11. Fruit trellises: 2 kilometers of fruit trellis structures installed along small paths in the ecological park, planted with exotic flowers and fruits for visitors to enjoy.

Proposed construction projects for the second phase of the ecological park include: orchard farmhouses, an early-ripening pear development history exhibition hall, a fruit trading market, a fruit processing base, a educated-youth manor, and a lakeside tourist access road.

Once the entire ecological park is completed, it will become a naturally rustic, vibrant landscape orchard that integrates science education, sightseeing, and leisure functions, featuring distinct characteristics. It will serve as a new tourism highlight in the Yingtan area.