Hainan province, a tropical fruit production base in China, has established several technological institutes in many cities and counties to conduct field research, covering sectors like pineapple, banana, dragon fruit, rice, as well as yellow pitaya.
In 2008, the banana industry in Hainan was booming, with the planting area in the province reaching 1,000,000 mu (66,667 hectares). However, the fertilization standards and production management of each banana plantation depended on the experience of the growers, resulting in many differences.
In 2009, Ruan Yunze, a professor at the School of Tropical Crops of Hainan University, and her graduate students decided to conduct field research in Jianfeng town, Ledong Li autonomous county to study the nutritional properties and fertilization technology of bananas.
Ruan instructs graduate students to observe the growth of banana seedlings. [Photo/Hainan Daily]
In the six years since the establishment of the banana scientific institute, about 30 graduate students have been conducting field research.
Ruan recalled that in order to overcome the problem of banana fusarium wilt, also known as Panama disease, she instructed the graduate students to adopt more than 1,000 treatment methods. After much trial and error, she eventually formulated a prevention and control technology system.
This system integrates crop rotation and intercropping technology, microbial organic fertilizer application technology, green fumigation and microbial organic fertilizer combined technology, as well as banana variety rotation technology. It has curbed the spread of banana fusarium wilt and slowed down the decline of the banana industry earnings, with it being adopted in Guangxi, Yunnan, and other provinces, as well as countries like Laos and Myanmar.
In addition to transforming scientific and technological achievements into practical technologies, the scientific institutes have also improved farmers' scientific knowledge, as well as created more rural vitalization talents through technology promotion, popular science training, and enterprise services.
With the technical support of the technological institute, the pineapples in the Lingao production base grow well. [Photo/Hainan Daily]
Overview
Haikou 
Sanya 
