Counterintuitive Natural Farming

In 2019, Yan Ping set aside an area of over 50 mu to trial ecological growing methods. This zone comprised more than 40 mu of Orah mandarins and over 10 mu of Empress mandarins, while the highest part of the orchard retained dozens of lychee trees that predated the lease. Over the years, she has filled gaps between struggling fruit trees with new plantings of lychee, longan, mango and wampee. She also cultivates cassava alongside short-cycle grain crops and vegetables in the interrows, including maize, soybeans, sorghum, millet, mung beans, long beans, winter melon, pumpkin, cucumber, tomato and luffa.

Having spent my whole life in northern China, I knew little about what citrus trees looked like or their flowering and fruiting cycles. It was only after spending extended periods in the orchard that a picture began to form. What, precisely, distinguishes ‘ecological cultivation’ from ‘conventional farming’? After further observation, I came to appreciate just how counter-intuitive many of Yan Ping’s methods appeared.

The first practice is leaving the fruit on the tree.

In conventional orchards, growers typically harvest the entire crop within a few days to two weeks to avoid frost damage. The fruit is sold wholesale in bulk, then stored in cold rooms for continuous sale. By contrast, Yan Ping leaves mature fruit on the branches to prolong both the harvest window and the selling season. Her Empress mandarins remain available from November through to January, while the Orah harvest stretches from December to late April, and sometimes into May.

Rather than stripping the trees in a single sweep, as is standard practice, her team begins by picking the upper branches and the most mature fruit. Harvesting occurs in successive rounds, meaning a single tree may be visited multiple times.

This method relies partly on the natural resilience of Empress and Orah mandarins, which store well on the branch and resist rot, but it is also a deliberate choice on Yan Ping’s part. She believes it allows consumers to enjoy fresh, tree-ripened fruit over a longer season, bypassing the texture loss and blandness of cold-stored produce, and lets the fruit develop distinct flavour profiles as the months progress.

By the time we visited in late March, the Empress mandarin harvest was long finished. Fortunately, the Orah crop was at its peak, and right through until the end of April, we enjoyed fruit picked straight from the branch each day.

Each sales season, Yan Ping brings in local labour. Initially, these workers were unfamiliar with ecological cultivation and harvesting principles. Through gradual adaptation and shared experience, they developed a mutual understanding, learning how to handle the crop so as to minimise damage to both the fruit and the trees.

While leaving fruit on the tree undoubtedly increases the workload, it yields a marked improvement in quality. The final fruit picked is usually found lowest down on the tree, with its branches nestled among the ground cover. The orchard’s unmanaged vegetation creates a stable microclimate of consistent temperature and humidity around these lower branches, resulting in a final harvest that is remarkably flavourful.

Leaving the fruit on the tree is also linked to Ms Yan Ping’s sales model. Her operation has built a relatively stable network of distribution channels: some produce is sold through ecological agriculture platforms, some via personal promotion by fellow eco-farmers, and a portion goes directly to loyal customers who have grown to trust her eco-friendly produce over the years through both online and offline channels. Volumes through these channels are steady but modest, necessitating direct dispatch from the orchard to the consumer.

This predictable workload does not overstretch labour, allowing the orchard to proceed at its own pace. Staff can be allocated for harvesting, sorting, crating, packing, printing and applying shipping labels, and transporting crates to the courier collection point. As a rule, fruit picked that day is dispatched the same day, or fruit harvested the previous afternoon ships the next day, eliminating any concern about spoilage from extended storage. In the event of prolonged rain, buyers are notified that harvesting and dispatch will be postponed.

II. Counterintuitive Farming Practice II: Leaving the Grass

The second intriguing concept is ‘leaving the grass’ – maximising ground cover by allowing vegetation to grow, provided it does not impede the fruit trees.

When I first arrived, I was baffled to find the orchard overrun with waist-high, or even taller, weeds of every description. I had been raised on the conventional wisdom passed down by my parents: weeds must be pulled, as they compete with crops for nutrients. As a child, my most frequent farm chore was pulling weeds by the root. We had to carry them clear of the fields to stop them from reviving the moment rain fell.

While harvesting the fruit, I began to see the value in leaving the grass: it creates a microclimate with stable temperature and humidity. Furthermore, during prolonged dry spells, the soil beneath the grass cover stays significantly moister than exposed ground. But do weeds really compete with the crops for nutrients? If we look strictly at nutrient uptake, some competition is inevitable. Yet from the standpoint of soil health, the benefits of maintaining ground cover far outweigh the drawbacks of this competition.

I later found theoretical backing for this when reading *Agricultural Soil Science* by soil scientist Hou Guangjiong.

Hou Guangjiong argued that soil functions like a living organism, possessing metabolic properties similar to life itself. At its core, he viewed soil as a composite colloid of organic matter, inorganic materials, microbes, and enzymes, capable of remarkable physiological functions, rather than merely a mixture of mineral sand and fine silt, or simply a carrier for nutrient elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. He identified two crucial physiological functions of soil: its permeability and moisture-retention capacity, and its physiological synergy with plants. Both of these functions are profoundly shaped by climate.

Put simply, leaving grass in place creates a relatively stable microclimate of moisture and temperature roughly a metre deep around the fruit trees. This microclimate significantly affects the soil’s infiltration and moisture-retention capabilities. During dry periods, it helps the soil retain moisture, allowing plant roots to draw water and nutrients from deeper layers; in wet weather, it encourages water to percolate downwards more effectively, preventing surface runoff that would otherwise wash away soil and leach nutrients.

However, leaving grass does not mean letting it grow unchecked; rather, it involves managing its growth and height at appropriate times. The timing of grass control is crucial and must align with the growth cycles of the trees or crops. For instance, mowing should be avoided when fruit trees are producing tender shoots and leaves, as the grass at this stage can act as a buffer by attracting pests and diseases away from the crops. If the grass is cut too early, these pests will simply move to the trees and feed on the young foliage.

There are several methods for managing grass, primarily trampling it down or cutting it with a sickle. When planting crops, a mower is used to clear a strip of ground for sowing, ensuring the seedlings can emerge without obstruction.

Another benefit of grass is that it creates a microenvironment conducive to microbial decomposition of organic matter. This was a point Ms Yan Ping drew to our attention during the fruit harvest. Fruits that cannot be sold are typically left on the ground beneath the trees, effectively composting in situ to return nutrients to the soil. Within a few days of being discarded, the fruit develops a white, fuzzy coating, which is actually a layer of beneficial microbes. Over time, the fruit ferments and breaks down until its nutrients are fully absorbed by the earth.

A clear indicator of this process is that by the time we return to clear the grass at the end of the early May harvest season, it is nearly impossible to find any of the discarded fruit left under the trees.

III. Counter-intuitive Farming Method Three: Composting

Producing compost and fermented plant extracts to condition the soil, manage pests and diseases, and improve crop flavour is a widely embraced practice among organic farmers.

During her first few years, Sister Yan Ping invested considerable effort into these practices. Higher up in the orchard, you can still see the large barrels of fermented extracts and composting piles she prepared back then. The composting sites remain in use, yet her enthusiasm for these methods has markedly waned over the past two years. She reasons that when labour and material costs are factored in, centralised composting is hardly inexpensive. In her view, on-site or distributed composting is a far more practical approach—for instance, returning unsellable fruit directly to the soil beneath the trees, or mulching with mown grass right where it is cut.

Sister Yan Ping’s vision is to transform the entire orchard into a living composting system. I interpret this as a two-pronged approach: first, retain the ground cover; second, cultivate a thriving ecosystem where soil microbes and a range of small organisms work together to continuously break down and ferment organic matter.

These three counter-intuitive farming methods have thoroughly reshaped my understanding. Having spent real days working in the orchard, I have come to see that while the natural, ecological, and organic landscape is undeniably beautiful, it demands immense effort behind the scenes. Sustaining these natural farming practices conceals a great deal of unseen, additional labour.

In next week’s instalment of Internship Diary at Baiguo Yuan (Part Two), I will break down exactly what these hidden costs entail.

A Foodthink author

Da Wang

A Phase Two intern in Foodthink’s Lianhe Programme, dreaming of working and living on the land, still searching for the right patch of earth to put down roots.