XI'AN, Dec. 25 (Xinhua) -- For farmer Cui Weidong, the culmination of decades of scientific effort can be savored in a single bite of the crisp, sweet apple known as Qincui.
On his one hectare in the loess hills of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, the 40-year-old has watched his orchard, and his livelihood, steadily transform. Fertilizer use has fallen by two-thirds and water consumption by 80 percent. Income, by contrast, has surged.
Last year, Cui's family earned 350,000 yuan (about 49,722 U.S. dollars) from their trees. "The yield has doubled, and so has the price," he said. Qincui is part of a new generation of apples bred not for distant, generic markets, but for this very landscape, resilient fruit crafted by science to thrive in an unforgiving, arid land.
The quiet agricultural revolution began with a far humbler journey. In the spring of 1947, a farmer named Li Xin'an hauled 200 apple saplings from the central province of Henan to Shaanxi's Luochuan County to test whether the fruit could survive in what was then considered unpromising terrain.
He could hardly have imagined that more than 70 years later, Luochuan's orchards would stretch across more than 35,000 hectares, earning the county the title of China's "apple capital." Even less could he have imagined that of the over 7,000 known apple germplasm resources worldwide, over 4,000 would take root here on the Loess Plateau.
Today's Shaanxi, the region Li helped pioneer, produces one in every seven apples consumed worldwide and one in every four in China, yielding more than 14.5 million tonnes annually. Yet despite its scale, the industry has long faced a structural weakness, as high-quality apples are scarce, while the majority are of lower quality.
"Long-term dependence on imported rootstocks and varieties, coupled with aging orchards and limited diversity, has led to declining yields and inferior quality," said An Jinhai, an expert at the Luochuan apple experiment station, highlighting the need to develop more homegrown varieties.
The solution has been taking root, quite literally, across a network of research stations scattered throughout the Loess Plateau. For over two decades, scientists like Ma Fengwang, China's lead scientist for the national apple industry technology system and a professor at the College of Horticulture of Northwest A&F University (NWAFU), have been on a quiet but determined quest to cultivate truly Chinese apple varieties.
The work is methodical and slow by design. "A new variety must pass six checkpoints," Ma said, outlining a process that runs from hybrid pollination to final promotion and takes no less than a decade. "Breeding new apple varieties requires immense patience and perseverance."
At research stations in Luochuan and Baishui counties operated by NWAFU, the ambition and patience have taken physical form. The Luochuan station alone preserves over 10,000 apple hybrid offspring, showcases more than 100 new varieties such as "Qincui," and maintains over 30 elite strains in regional trials. Meanwhile, the Baishui station has bred a series of premium varieties, including "Ruiyang" and "Ruixue." With their stable yields and superior quality, these homegrown Chinese varieties are gaining increasing market recognition, with their cultivation area expanding.
The breakthrough lies not only in flavor but in suitability to the land. New varieties such as Qincui are bred for the land itself. "They are better adapted to our dry, low-rainfall conditions here," Cui said, adding that wider row spacing now allows tractors and mowers to move freely between trees, reducing labor demands while improving efficiency.
Technology is accelerating what was once the slow, intuitive art of selection. With the application of high-tech methods such as molecular breeding, techniques like chromosome doubling can now be used to precisely select parent apples and directionally improve key traits, according to Ma. The goal is to build resistance to disease and stress while shaping flavors for contemporary tastes.
Official statistics show that as of the end of 2024, China cultivated apples on more than 1.93 million hectares, producing over 50 million tonnes each year. On the Loess Plateau, the long-standing reliance on monoculture is gradually giving way to diversity.
From 200 uncertain saplings to a global seedbed of innovation, the story of the Loess Plateau is one of patient, foundational transformation, a quiet revolution that, at last, is bearing its richest fruit.
As more locally bred varieties hit the market, consumers are gaining access to an expanding array of apple varieties tailored to different age groups and taste preferences, Ma said. "Breeding within this gene pool is our foundation, and it's what gives us the confidence to steadily develop new varieties and enrich people's fruit baskets." ■
