China News Service, Ganzhou, November 12 (Xiong Jinyang, Liu Xing) The mountains are filled with orange and the fragrance of fruit is everywhere. In the past few days, navel orange bases in Anyuan County, Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province have opened for picking, and the annual Gannan navel orange season has officially begun. From mountain orchards to sorting workshops, technological equipment runs through the entire harvesting and sorting process, helping each "golden fruit" to leave the mountains and rush to the market.
Walking into the navel orange planting base in Xinlong Township, Anyuan County, the mountains are filled with orange trees covered with golden and plump fruits. Fruit farmers shuttle through the forest to harvest the first crop of fresh fruits. "This year's climate is suitable for the growth of Gannan navel oranges, and the sweetness and quality are better than in previous years. I have planted more than 30 acres of navel oranges, with a yield of about 200,000 kilograms and an output value of more than 300,000 yuan. The orders received after the picking started are also very stable, and I am very happy." said Ouyang Qingsong, a fruit farmer in Xinlong Township.
The mountain roads are rugged. In the past, fresh fruits had to be transported down the mountain manually, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. It was also difficult to recruit workers during the peak harvest season. Nowadays, load-bearing drones have become a good helper for transportation. With the buzzing of the rotors, the fruit basket filled with navel oranges is steadily lifted, flying over the steep slope along the preset route, and quickly transferred to the concentration point at the foot of the mountain.
"The use of drones for transportation not only reduces fruit collision damage, but also greatly improves harvesting efficiency." According to drone operator Lan Wei, a single load of drones can reach more than 100 kilograms, which not only shortens the transportation time, but also saves fruit farmers a lot of labor expenses.
After the fresh fruits are transported down the mountain, they are immediately sent to the intelligent sorting workshop. At Anyuan County Jinganfeng Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., navel oranges undergo processes such as cleaning, air-drying, and defect identification, and then are accurately graded by intelligent equipment based on indicators such as fruit shape, fruit weight, fruit surface cleanliness, and sugar content. The daily sorting capacity can reach 200 tons. The qualified navel oranges will be packed directly in boxes and sent to major domestic supermarkets and overseas markets.
As the core production area for navel oranges in southern Gansu, the navel oranges produced in Anyuan County are large in shape, tender in texture, sweet and juicy. In addition to good soil and water conditions, technological transformation has also provided great help to the development of the local navel orange industry. According to reports, Anyuan County has vigorously implemented the fruit industry Internet of Things project, supporting the construction of a digital service management system for the entire navel orange industry chain, and has built 12 smart orchard bases.
As of 2025, Anyuan County already has 2 navel orange deep processing companies, 54 fruit companies, and 9 national and provincial leading companies; it has built more than 120,000 cubic meters of cold storage, with a storage and preservation capacity of 30,000 tons. In addition, two "national brand" scientific research institutions and the academician and expert workstation of the citrus team of Huazhong Agricultural University have successively settled in Anyuan, continuing to inject intellectual momentum into the development of the local navel orange industry.
"This year, the county's navel orange planting area will reach 241,300 acres, and the total output is expected to reach 270,000 tons." Qiu Xiaohua, a cadre of the Anyuan County Fruit Industry Development Service Center, said that in the next step, Anyuan will continue to implement standardized planting and Huanglongbing prevention and control, accelerate the construction of smart orchards, expand online and offline sales and foreign trade export channels, extend the navel orange industry chain, and continue to polish the Gannan navel orange brand.
