"Qinmi No. 9" golden passion fruit quickly attracted attention after being launched on the market due to its high sweetness and good taste, and the planting area increased significantly.
"Qinmi No. 9" golden passion fruit is a product jointly bred by Guangxi Qinci Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. and Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Its origin and core production area is Qinzhou, Guangxi. Currently, many domestic production areas are developing and planting this variety.
According to Mr. Deng Fubin, head of Qinci Agriculture, the planting area of this variety has grown from more than 2,000 hectares last year to 20,000 hectares this year, an increase of ten times. The sales volume of orchards across the country can reach 500,000 kilograms a day.
"With the increase in output, the price has dropped, but the drop is reasonable and not too big. The current price at the origin of middle-big fruit is about ￥4.5/kg, which shows that this variety has a good prospect. The biggest challenge at present is that unauthorized vendors sell poisonous seedlings with mixed provenance, which leads to frequent production problems and has an impact on the sales of original seedlings. If this remains the case for a long time, problematic seedlings will account for an excessively large proportion in planting, which will inevitably lead to the degradation of varieties and have a huge negative impact on the industry."
"We invest a lot of money and manpower every year to maintain the Qinmi No. 9 female parent garden to ensure the purity of the seeds. However, some growers are greedy for low prices and buy seedlings of unknown origin. The fruits produced by such seedlings are prone to viruses. and various quality problems, such as deformed appearance, small size, uneven color and damaged fruits, and the sweetness, taste and aroma are different or even worse than those of authentic golden passion fruit. With the popularity of Qinmi No. 9, the proportion of this situation has increased. For example, in the Yunnan production area, another variety, ‘Xiaohuangjin, little gold’, was sold as Qinmi No. 9 seedlings. The growers could not tell the difference, and the problem was not discovered until the fruits were produced."
Deng said that he hoped that after the variety rights are approved, farmers can choose the original seedlings jointly bred by the company and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences for planting. This is a guarantee for the interests of the varieties and growers. At the same time, he will continue to improve seedlings and promote planting management methods.
"Qinmi No. 9" golden passion fruit seedling farm
The picking period for Guangxi golden passion fruit is from July to the end of the year. It is understood that the weather during the critical period of fruit ripening this season was poor, resulting in unsatisfactory fruit setting and reduced yield for batches that were already at the peak of production.
"June is the big flowering period, and the norm is to pick in June and put on the market in July. It was expected that these batches of fruit would be large. However, high temperatures occurred in early June and continuous rainfall at the end of June, resulted in a significant reduction in fruit setting. There have been fewer batches put on the market in the past two months. The recent weather has become more stable than before, and it is expected that the output in early October will be ideal. The overall taste and sweetness will not be affected."
Deng said that passion fruit is mostly grown in the open field and is greatly affected by weather. Therefore, he is preparing to promote the protected cultivation of passion fruit to ensure production to the greatest extent.
Guangxi Qinci Agricultural Technology Co., Ltd. is a joint breeding unit of Qinmi No. 9 passion fruit. It is engaged in the standardized production and sales of virus-free passion fruit seedlings. It has seedling greenhouses and cooperative planting bases in Guangxi, Hainan and Guizhou. The sales method is mainly to connect with large supply chain sellers
