Shimen mandarin oranges
Shimen Citrus
Dear friends:
Hello everyone! Welcome to Shimen, the "Home of Chinese Citrus," for sightseeing and tourism.
Every time the citrus ripening season arrives, seeing the splendid sight of lush trees laden with golden fruit, one cannot help but recall the widely recited lines by Song Dynasty poet Su Shi: "A year's best scenery you must remember — it is when oranges turn yellow and tangerines are green." Once again it is the season when oranges turn red. Thousands of citrus merchants from all over the country gather in Shimen to join more than 300,000 local fruit growers in savoring the sweet fruit and celebrating the joy of harvest.
Citrus is an evergreen fruit tree of the tropics and subtropics, fond of warmth and moisture, belonging to the Rutaceae family, subfamily Aurantioideae. In the world, it is mainly distributed in regions south of 35 degrees north latitude. In China, citrus is mainly distributed between 16 and 37 degrees north latitude — from Sanya in Hainan in the south to Shaanxi, Gansu, and Henan in the north, from Taiwan in the east to the Yarlung Tsangpo River valley in Tibet in the west. Three genera are used for economic cultivation: Poncirus, Fortunella, and Citrus. Citrus cultivated in China and other countries is mainly of the genus Citrus.
Shimen in Hunan is one of China's largest orange and tangerine producing areas and one of the national foreign trade bases for oranges and tangerines, enjoying the brand effect of "Shimen Citrus" nationwide. In particular, the "Xianguan" brand early-ripening mandarin oranges sell well in the North China, Northeast, and Northwest markets, and demand exceeds supply. In 1997, approved by the national Ministry of Foreign Trade, Shimen citrus was permitted to be exported independently; in 1998, it was named "Hunan's No. 1 County in Fruit Output"; in 2001, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Foreign Trade jointly designated Shimen County as a "National Demonstration Zone for Horticultural Product Export"; the Xianguan brand mandarin orange was rated "National Quality Fruit" by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2001, and the Xianguan brand was awarded the title of Famous Trademark by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce in 2001.
Shimen is a fertile land. Located in the northwest of Hunan Province, on the border of Hunan and Hubei, it faces Dongting Lake to the east, adjoins Wulingyuan to the west, borders Taohuayuan to the south, and looks toward the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River to the north. Within its territory stands Huping Mountain, the roof of Hunan. Huping Mountain is one of the world's 200 key ecological zones jointly selected by the World Wildlife Fund, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the World Bank. It is a precious gene pool of biological species in Central China. There is the ancient Buddhist holy site of Jiashan Temple, the underground palace of Longwang Cave, and the Huashan Bird Island and Mengquan Lake, with beautiful scenery and pleasant views. It is a mountainous county of "eight parts mountain, one part water, half a part farmland, and half a part roads and estates." With abundant light and heat, ample rainfall, large temperature differences between day and night, deep soil, and mild winters, it possesses the climatic and environmental conditions for producing high-quality fruit.
Due to its special geographical and climatic environment, the citrus produced not only has high sugar content but also ripens about 10 days earlier than similar varieties in production areas at similar latitudes. In particular, the "Xianguan" brand early-ripening mandarin orange is renowned at home and abroad for its rapid coloring, early market availability, thin peel and tender flesh, golden fruit color, delicious and juicy taste, rich sweetness, and fragrant aroma. It is deeply loved by people and has been selected for Zhongnanhai and served at the State Guesthouse. Due to its excellent quality, it has won first place many times in national and provincial quality citrus competitions. It is one of the main export varieties, exported to more than ten countries and regions worldwide. Russia in particular has a special fondness for "Jinxiangyuan," and demand exceeds supply.
Up to now, the county's planting area has reached more than 300,000 mu, with an annual output of more than 300,000 tons, accounting for 70% of Hunan Province's total, and it will reach 500,000 tons in three years. More than half of the county's farmers rely on citrus cultivation as their main source of income. In addition to being sold throughout the country, since its first export to Canada in 1968, the product has been exported for 38 consecutive years to more than 10 countries and regions including Europe, America, Russia, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Macao, with an annual export volume of nearly 30,000 tons, accounting for 10% of the national total, earning more than 20 million US dollars in foreign exchange annually. It has become the country's largest production and export base for early-ripening mandarin oranges and has been awarded the titles of "Home of Chinese Citrus" and "China's No. 1 County for Early-Ripening Mandarin Oranges" by the State Forestry Administration.
Shimen Xiuping Horticultural Farm is one of Shimen's citrus export bases. It adopts a "pig-biogas-fruit" circular economy model and has built an ecological citrus orchard. Crops interplanted in the citrus orchard are used to feed pigs; pig manure enters biogas digesters; biogas is used for lighting and cooking pig feed; and biogas slurry and residue are used to fertilize the citrus orchard. In this way, not only do citrus farmers reduce production costs, but the use of organic fertilizer also makes the citrus produced taste authentic and look beautiful, with excellent quality, making it a sought-after product for merchants from north and south.
The whole orange is a treasure. Citrus fruit excels in color, aroma, and taste; it can be eaten fresh and also processed into various products, mainly juice. Citrus is rich in nutrition. According to analysis by the Central Health Research Institute, every 100 grams of edible portion contains 1 gram of citric acid, 0.05 mg of riboflavin, 0.3 mg of niacin, 90 mg of vitamin C, 0.9 g of protein, 0.1 g of fat, 12 g of sugar, 0.2 g of crude fiber, 0.4 g of inorganic salts, 26 mg of calcium, 15 mg of phosphorus, 0.2 mg of iron, and 221.9 joules of calories. In addition, it also contains carotene, vitamin P, and various other vitamins. Among these, the vitamin C content is 6 to 20 times that of apples. Citrus is not only rich in nutrition but also vivid in color, strong in aroma, and moderately sweet and sour, making one want to eat upon smelling it, salivate upon seeing it, and find it sweet upon tasting it. Mandarin oranges, tangerines, and navel oranges can all be cooked with other dishes to make delicacies of various flavors. Thus, citrus has become one of humanity's favorite fruits.
Besides being suitable for fresh consumption, citrus can also be processed into candied fruit, citrus juice, sweetened orange segments in syrup, citrus jam, fruit crystals, juice sacs, citrus wine, crab-stuffed orange, orange soup, and more, becoming major beverages or foods for people in various countries today. Orange peel, after being soaked in boiling water, can be made into a dish with a distinctive flavor, which was once praised by Comrade Zhou Enlai.
Citrus can also be used medicinally. "Records of Famous Physicians" states: "The orange is non-toxic, lowers qi and stops vomiting and coughing... promotes urination, mainly treats the spleen's inability to digest grain, lightens the body and prolongs life." Dried tangerine peel (chenpi) and orange pith (juluo) are famous traditional Chinese medicinal materials. They have the effects of strengthening the stomach and dispelling wind, as well as anti-inflammatory, anti-ulcer, antibacterial, and cholagogic effects. "Compendium of Materia Medica" records: "Orange peel is bitter and can dry, pungent and can disperse, warm and can harmonize. In treating all diseases, it always takes advantage of its function of regulating qi and drying dampness." Orange seeds can also be used medicinally; they are bitter in nature and non-toxic, with the function of regulating qi and relieving pain, used to treat hernia, swelling and pain of the testicles, breast pain, lumbar pain, and bladder qi pain. The Qing Dynasty work "Words from the Orange Grove" contains a poem: "Would that I could have ten million trees in a famous garden, every household free of illness and all enjoying longevity." When Japanese people catch a cold, they often boil kumquat leaves or fruit in water and drink it. After eating cured or pickled foods, Americans always drink citrus juice to prevent cancer.
In addition, citrus by-products serve various purposes — the flowers can be used to scent tea. Aromatic oils extracted from fallen citrus flowers and fruits are widely used in the food industry. After citrus is squeezed for juice, the remaining peel and residue can be processed into feed. Pectin extracted from citrus peel and residue has strong gelling properties and is an additive in the food industry, also used in pharmaceutical and textile industries. Hesperidin extracted from fruit peel is an important raw material in the pharmaceutical industry.
Therefore people say, "Citrus is a fine fruit that brings sweetness, joy, and prosperity!" The character "gan" (柑, mandarin) has the wood radical beside "gan" (甘, sweet); "ju" (橘, tangerine), commonly written as "jie" (桔), has the wood radical beside "ji" (吉, auspicious). "Shimen Citrus" has let the people of Shimen taste sweetness, and they call the citrus industry a "sweet industry."
In the early 1960s, the people of Shimen tasted the benefits from the newly planted ten-thousand-mu satsuma mandarin orchards. From then on, they "held firm" to citrus without letting go and carried out large-scale development of hilly and sloped land. Over the past 30-plus years, they introduced huge investments from the World Bank to build citrus orchards here and introduced extra-early-ripening mandarins, high-quality early-ripening mandarins, red-fleshed navel oranges, Newhall navel oranges, large-fruited seedless ponkan, and improved hybrid citrus varieties from Japan and the United States.
The rapid development of the citrus industry has driven the development of industries such as nursery stock, science and technology, fertilizer, packaging, transportation, processing, export, catering, tourism, and communications. The county has more than 70 specialized households engaged in citrus nursery production, 1,200 citrus professionals and technicians, and the more than 300,000 tons of citrus use 100,000 paper boxes and 1 million bamboo boxes each year. Every citrus harvest season, more than 4,000 agricultural vehicles in the county are involved in citrus transportation, with more than 50 waxing and processing enterprises and 8 export enterprises, exporting nearly 30,000 tons of citrus annually. According to statistics from the statistics department, the added output value related to the citrus industry exceeds 400 million yuan.
The county has successively established nearly 30 fruit production and sales associations (consortiums), providing pre-production, mid-production, and post-production services for Shimen's 300,000 citrus farmers, and has built a 12,000-mu green fruit base. Of the more than 300,000 tons of oranges and tangerines produced in the county each year, 90% is sold through association organizations. A citrus wholesale market at the production area in Zaoshi Town, Shimen, has also been built. It is currently the largest citrus production-area trading center in China, with an annual transaction volume of more than 150,000 tons and an annual turnover of more than 100 million yuan. In 2001, this market was approved as a "Designated Wholesale Market of the Ministry of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China."
Citrus ranks first among the world's hundred fruits in both planting area and output. Currently, 135 countries and regions around the world produce citrus (including sweet oranges, mandarins, pomelos, and lemons), among which more than 40 are major producing countries and regions. The annual trade value is 6.5 billion US dollars, ranking third in the world after wheat (16 billion US dollars) and corn (10 billion US dollars). China is one of the world's three major citrus powers, now with 21.6 million mu of citrus planting area, ranking first in the world, and an output of more than 11 million tons, ranking third in the world. As one of China's most important internationally traded agricultural products, citrus has an annual trade value of about 30 billion yuan.
Citrus juice ranks first among the "world's top three beverages" and is the world's number one drink. Canned citrus juice sacs are mainly for export, with an international trade volume of about 300,000 tons; China's export volume reaches 180,000 tons, and demand exceeds supply. Sugar products such as citrus jam and candied fruit, and by-products such as essential oils, pectin, flavonoids, and seed oil, have always enjoyed a large and stable consumer base due to their unique flavors and special uses.
Citrus is the general term for mandarins, tangerines, oranges, kumquats, pomelos, trifoliate oranges, and others, and originated in China. As early as 4,000 years ago, China's citrus was listed as tribute and tax goods. By the Qin and Han dynasties, citrus production had further developed. "Records of the Grand Historian: Biographies of Su Qin" records: "Qi must contribute fish and salt from the sea, Chu must contribute orchards of oranges and pomelos," indicating that citrus from the Chu region (Hubei, Hunan, and other places) was as important as fish and salt production from the Qi region (Shandong and other places).
During the Tang and Song dynasties, with economic development, the regional distribution of citrus production was roughly the same as the distribution range of modern Chinese citrus. Tang Dynasty poet Cen Shen wrote in a poem, "The courtyard trees are planted purely with oranges, half the garden plots are planted with tea." Tang Dynasty poet Wei Yingwu wrote: "I pity you lying ill longing for fresh oranges; I try to pick them but they are still sour and not yet yellow." The "New Book of Tang: Geography" compiled by Ouyang Xiu and others in the Song Dynasty further listed the situations of present-day Sichuan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, and Jiangxi presenting citrus as tribute to the imperial court. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the citrus industry had developed into an era of commodity production. The Qing Dynasty work "Nanfeng Customs and Products Record" records that in places such as Nanfeng, Jiangxi, entire villages "do not engage in farming but specialize in oranges as their profession." "Miscellaneous Records of Fujian" describes outside Fuzhou city, "tens of mu wide, all planted with citrus." "Miscellaneous Records of Lingnan" records: "Guangzhou has very little arable land; the people mostly plant citrus for profit."
Shimen, Hunan, has a long history of citrus cultivation. More than 2,000 years ago, the great patriotic poet Qu Yuan wrote the famous piece "Ode to the Orange" in his hometown. "O empyrean fine tree, the orange came to serve here; by fate not to be moved, it grew in the southern land." The lines in the piece expressing the orange's loyal and noble character have been widely praised since ancient times. According to research, citrus originated in China's Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, traveled down the Yangtze River, and spread south of the Huai River and the lower reaches of the Yangtze down to the Lingnan region. Through long-term cultivation and selection by the Chinese people, citrus became a precious fruit for humanity. In the 15th century, the Portuguese brought China's sweet orange to the Mediterranean coast for cultivation, where it was locally called "Chinese apple." Later, the sweet orange spread to Latin America and the United States. In 1821, the British came to China to collect specimens and brought kumquats to Europe. In 1892, the United States introduced citrus from China, calling it "China mandarin." In English, mandarins and tangerines are collectively called "Mandarin," whose original meaning is "precious mandarin of China." The satsuma mandarin came from a Tang Dynasty Japanese monk, Tajima Nakamori, who went to offer incense at Mount Tiantai in Zhejiang and brought back citrus seeds, which were planted in Kagoshima and Nagashima in Japan and developed through mutation and selection. Today, citrus cultivation is found on all five continents, with Brazil, the United States, China, Japan, Spain, and Australia having the largest cultivation areas and outputs.
In the history of world citrus production, the citrus cultivation science and technology created by the people of ancient China have always been in a leading position.
As early as the Warring States period, people knew that oranges, fragrant oranges, and trifoliate oranges belonged to the same category of fruit trees. In the ancient text "Yiyuan" from the Northern and Southern Dynasties, "tangerine, orange, sweet orange, and pomelo" were distinguished. The Tang Dynasty book "Supplement to Materia Medica" recorded five types of tangerines including "red tangerine, milk tangerine, yellow tangerine, stone tangerine, and sand tangerine" and described that "in Lingnan there are pomelos as big as winter melons." The world's first monograph on citrus — "Record of the Orange" — used nearly three-fifths of its length to record 27 kinds of citrus, including true tangerine, sea red tangerine, Dongting tangerine, red tangerine, kumquat, wood tangerine, sweet tangerine, sweet orange, and yellow orange. It described variety characteristics from aspects such as fruit size, shape, peel color, ease of peeling, number of segments, flavor, number of seeds, ripening time, and tree crown morphology, and pointed out the basis for naming.
The key technique in citrus production is citrus propagation. As early as the Warring States period, citrus grafting had already been recorded in classical texts. In the Southern Song Dynasty, Han Yanzhi gave a detailed account of citrus grafting techniques in "Record of the Orange": "Take the seeds of trifoliate orange, wash them clean, and put them in fertile soil. In one year they grow, and in another year the wood is as large as a child's fist. In spring, then graft. Take branches from the best tangerines and finest oranges that have faced the sun for a year as scions. Leave more than a foot above the ground, saw and cut it, remove its bark, join the two branches, and do not shake the roots. Scoop soil to fill in around it to prevent water, wrap it on the outside with lotus, and bind it with hemp. A skilled worker, with a wave of the axe, leaves none that do not survive." Most citrus seeds, if sun-dried until dry, lose their germinating power. However, ancient Chinese gardeners created an ingenious method: planting citrus together with the peel, or peeling and separating the segments and planting them in moist soil, waiting for spring warmth to germinate. The invention and application of citrus propagation techniques laid the foundation for modern large-scale citrus production.
According to the ancient book "Tribute of Yu," citrus produced in the Yangzhou and Jingzhou areas was listed as tribute and tax goods. At that time, the scope of Jingzhou included present-day Hunan. This shows that more than 2,000 years ago, citrus cultivation in Hunan and other places had already reached a considerable scale, and after the Qin and Han dynasties it became even more prevalent. Zeng Gong, one of the Eight Great Prose Masters of the Tang and Song, once wrote a poem praising citrus: "Bright and distinct, a hundred are seen as autumn fruit; interwoven among the leaves, they bend the frosty branches. Kingfisher-feather tassels emerge from the heavenly guard; golden balls play and brush against each other. In their wrappers, how can one count oranges and pomelos as cheap; only when they reside in the cauldron do they suffice to harmonize salt and sour. In rivers and lakes they suffer the slow regard of vulgar eyes; in the imperial forbidden garden one still feels ordinary trees are many. Who can open his mouth and present them to the Son of Heaven, so that the great tree may reach across the blue waves?" This poem gives a detailed description of the citrus tree's posture, leaves, fruit, color, flavor, and the season when the fruit ripens. At that time, mandarin oranges could already be presented to the Son of Heaven, hence they have long enjoyed the fine name of "tribute oranges."
As a place name, Shimen seems too casual and commonplace. Compared with those graceful, romantic, or bold names with profound history, it is indeed quite plain and ordinary. Yet precisely because this name is too casual and commonplace, this small county town located in northwestern Hunan adjacent to Zhangjiajie is truly a very special and unbelievable place! The Zhicheng-Liuzhou and Shimen-Changsha railways meet here; provincial highways 1829, 1836, and 1848 run through the territory; and the Changde-Zhangjiajie Expressway also passes through. This county town, with an area of only 20 square kilometers, actually has 3 railway stations, 4 bus stations, and a 10-kilometer riverside embankment and Binjiang Road. The county town's streets are clean and beautiful, and traffic order is well organized. It has national key projects such as a thermal power plant with an investment of more than 3 billion yuan and the Zaoshi Reservoir with an investment of more than 2 billion yuan. What is especially incredible is that it actually has a museum of considerable scale, rarely seen even in many important large cities. The museum houses more than 2,000 precious cultural relics, including the fossil of "Shimen Man" from more than 20,000 years ago and Ba people's military musical instruments from more than 2,000 years ago called chunyu (a type of ancient bronze musical instrument). These relics restore the evolution of civilization in the Lishui River basin...
A former provincial-level poverty-stricken county located in the mountainous area on the edge of Dongting Lake, a typical mountainous agricultural county that had always depended on sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, and pigs, has now become one of the province's top ten counties and cities in economic vitality, a national advanced city in sanitation, a national civilized demonstration county town, a national advanced county in science and technology, a national advanced county in culture, a national advanced county in sports, a national ecological demonstration county, and one of the national top 100 counties in telecommunications... What has caused such tremendous changes here? How have so many honors been achieved?
Experts from the Development Research Center of the State Council analyze that Shimen's rich resources and sound governance are the main driving factors behind its rapid economic development. Since the mid-20th century, proceeding from local conditions, they determined a development approach of "adjusting the structure based on distinctive features and seeking high efficiency by relying on science and technology," and used the mountainous area's rich land resources and unique climatic conditions to vigorously develop four major mountain distinctive industries: citrus, Matou goats, high-mountain environmentally friendly vegetables, and tea. They successively established technical cooperation relationships with more than 20 research institutions and universities, including the Chinese Citrus Research Institute, Huazhong Agricultural University, and the Provincial Horticultural Research Institute, and signed technical exchange and cooperation agreements with the Japan-China Technical Exchange Association and Florida Citrus World Company of the United States, enabling Shimen's mountain distinctive industries to connect with new varieties and technologies nationwide and even worldwide. They "upgraded" 170,000 mu of mid- and late-ripening citrus varieties in the county into marketable early-ripening mandarin oranges, thus making Shimen leap to become "China's No. 1 County for Early-Ripening Mandarin Oranges," with high-quality fruit accounting for more than 75% of the county's total citrus output.
The large-scale contiguous development of the citrus industry has made Shimen the largest nectar source base in the country. Every April, when orange blossoms are fragrant, hundreds of migratory beekeeping households from Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Jiangsu, Shandong, and other provinces come. Together with more than 100 local specialized beekeeping households, they bring more than 50,000 hives and 1 billion bees into Shimen's citrus orchards to set up camp and hasten honey production. According to statistics from the county's bee industry development center, for orange blossom honey alone, the county's annual output reaches more than 300 tons, with an output value of more than 3 million yuan.
Ancient Shimen has opened itself to the world. This ancient mountain town will also spread its fragrance throughout the world along with the sweetness of its oranges. Shimen's oranges have turned red again!