Macheng Chestnuts

Macheng Chestnuts

　　Since March 2005, the development of low hilly and sloping lands focusing on chestnuts has been in full swing. Macheng City is also actively making preparations for the grafting of chestnut trees. The municipal government has allocated 300,000 yuan as seed money for the chestnut grafting project; the Forestry Bureau is organizing technical training sessions on chestnut grafting in three zones—eastern Macheng, northern Macheng, and central-southern Macheng—and plans to train 500 people. The collection of scions for chestnut grafting across the city has already begun. The Forestry Bureau has started with the first batch of 150,000 out of a total of 800,000 scions to be collected, which were shipped today from Luotian County. This batch mainly consists of high-quality chestnut varieties such as Liuyue Bao, Qianci Dabanli, and Zhongchi Li, and will primarily be used for grafting in concentrated contiguous chestnut bases covering an area of 500 mu or more.

　　In recent years, Macheng City has vigorously developed its chestnut industry through the development of low hilly and sloping lands. The area under chestnut cultivation has rapidly expanded from over 300,000 mu to 650,000 mu. In December 2004, the State Forestry Administration officially designated Macheng as the “Hometown of Chinese Chestnuts.” Currently, there are still 5.14 million chestnut trees in the city that require grafting. The municipal government has required that all grafting be completed this spring in order to realize benefits as soon as possible. To this end, the Forestry Bureau has decided to treat this task as a concrete action reflecting the advanced nature of Communist Party members—preparing in advance, acting promptly, responding to the urgent needs and concerns of the people, and ensuring the work is done effectively so that the public can reap the benefits and feel satisfied.