Youqi’s first attempt at large-scale durian farming on this land was in 2019.
Yet, the first phase saw 6,000 seedlings die, with a survival rate of just 60 per cent, resulting in an economic loss of 70 million yuan (US$9.6 million).
The company later adopted an approach to grow different heights of companion plants: banana trees with large leaves shield durian seedlings from the harsh midday sun, while taller Areca palms act as windbreakers.
Meanwhile, low-lying pineapple plants further help reduce ground temperature.
The tactical measures boosted the seedling survival rate to over 95 per cent.
In 2023, Youqi’s young durian trees – then three years old – yielded for the first time, producing around 50 tonnes of the fruit. A year later, the output reached 260 tonnes.
This year, Du has estimated that the total harvest will reach 500 to 600 tonnes, and the last thing he was worried about was where to sell them.
“These durians will be completely pre-sold by the time they grow to ping-pong-ball size – the earliest stage when more accurate yield estimates become possible,” Du said.
Currently, Du’s highest durian trees are around 7m tall, compared with mature Southeast Asian plantations where trees reach as high as 30m. A significant surge in output is likely to happen within the next two years, when each tree will become capable of yielding more than 50 durians, Du said.
“Our trees are still like kids in kindergarten compared with those in Southeast Asia,” Du said. “After a decade, each tree should be able to bear more than 100 fruits per harvest.”
In China, as concerns over economic growth mount, few industries now give insiders the same promising feeling as that of durian farming.
Naturally, large amounts of cash have been flowing to the sector in recent years, from coal mine owners in Shanxi to manufacturing bosses in Guangdong.
Micheal Wang, or better known as Maikou Wang among his followers, hosted more than 800 batches of bosses looking to invest in durian plantations last year.
Running social media accounts on different Chinese platforms, teaching knowledge about durian farming, Wang also acts as a broker for saplings and lands.
“Durian is the most countercyclical fruit of all,” Wang said. “Because of the pandemic and others, with all the consumption downgrading, businesses struggled, and fruits were hard to sell. But the import volume of durian kept rising.”
The planting area for durian in China has at least doubled annually in the past few years, Wang said.
Currently, a golden rule for selecting growing areas for durians in China is a narrow swathe located between 18 degrees north latitude and 19 degrees north latitude – which points only to a small part of southern Hainan.
And while efforts are under way to develop cold-resistant varieties of durian, this may take years, perhaps even a decade.
Nonetheless, some of the more bold industry investors are already looking farther north, setting their sights on the mainland, with a new darling area being Xishuangbanna.
It is a small and tropical region in the southwestern province of Yunnan, near the border with Myanmar and Laos, though it is still unclear whether the area can be industrialised as successfully as Hainan.
“There’s a palpable sense that Xishuangbanna’s durian-farming scene today mirrors Hainan’s in 2020 – teetering on the brink of explosive growth,” Wang said.
This article was first published on SCMP.
