Tai'an city's Shanglaozhuang village sees bumper rice crop

It's been smiles all around for the farmers in Shanglaozhuang village – located in Dongping county in Tai'an city, in East China's Shandong province – who have been busy bringing in a bumper rice harvest.

Nowadays, they're using efficient technology to make the job easier.

"It is quite convenient to use reaping machines in the field and 1 mu (0.07 hectares) of land can be harvested in just over 10 minutes," said Wang Ji, director of Lvzhou Tianyuan Co Ltd.

To boost its green agricultural development, Shanglaozhuang village has adopted combined rice and lobster intercropping – the cultivation of two or more crops simultaneously on the same field, a form of polyculture.

This enables microorganisms in the rice field to provide nutrients for the lobsters, while the lobster's excrement can also provide organic fertilizer for the rice fields, forming a natural recycling mode.

This year, the village has developed 1,500 mu fields for rice and lobster intercropping, which is projected to yield over 250,000 kilograms of rice, said Li Yuan, the deputy village head. (Edited by Chen Chuxuan)

Residents of Shanglaozhuang village are enjoying a bumper harvest of rice. [Photo by Liu Lianke for chinadaily.com.cn]

Farmers in Shanglaozhuang village use reaping machines to harvest the rice. [Photo by Liu Lianke for chinadaily.com.cn]