“Our tea oil tree forest has a bumper harvest this year, with a high yield of up to 1,000 kilograms per mu (about 0.067 hectares). There are nearly 800 people working on the mountain now, and it’s expected to harvest around 150,000 kilograms of tea-oil seeds,” said Qin Hongmei, head of Guiyang County Tianneng Ecological Agriculture Development Co., Ltd. 

 

Tea oil trees are a kind of evergreen tree species with well-developed roots and lush branches and leaves. They have strong tolerance to poor soil and wide adaptability, which are often used to green barren mountains and maintain soil and water. A tea oil tree generally takes 3 to 5 years to bear fruit from when it’s planted, and can fruit for more than 50 years.

 

Guiyang County has a long history of oil tea production and is a national demonstration county of the “China Good Grain and Oil” Action Plan. At present, it can cultivate 1 million tea-oil seedlings annually. This year, it has 344,200 mu (about 22,946.67 hectares) of tea oil tree forest, with the expected annual output of oil tea seeds to reach about 5,000 tons, the annual processing output value to exceed 1.5 billion yuan, and the total output value of the entire industry chain to hit about 2 billion yuan, which will help more than 50,000 farmers to increase income.

 

 

Chinese source: xinhuanet