XAG Showcases Smart Agriculture Solutions in Ganzhou, Empowering Gannan Navel Orange Industry Upgrade

In the golden autumn season, Jiangxi navel oranges ripen one after another, and the fragrance of fruit grows ever stronger across the land of southern Jiangxi. On October 22, following this wisp of fruity fragrance, the New Farmer Conference came to Ganzhou, Jiangxi, the "World Capital of Oranges." The conference focused on the cultivation and management of the local specialty crop navel oranges, and around the practical problems in orchard production and the opportunities for industrial development, carried out technical sharing, experience exchange and on-site demonstrations. "New Farmer Conference" is a technology empowerment platform created by XAG for agricultural producers worldwide. Through various forms such as cutting-edge technology sharing, product demonstration and training, and planting experience exchange, we bring practical, efficient and implementable smart agriculture solutions to the vast number of farmers, helping agriculture improve quality and efficiency, and helping farmers reduce costs and increase income. From "competing on yield" to "competing on quality" Solving the problem of "a bumper harvest without a bumper income" On November 6, the navel oranges of southern Jiangxi will begin the earliest batch of picking. As China's core orange production area, Ganzhou's navel orange annual output reaches more than 2 million tons, and in 2025 the output even reached 2.1 million tons. However, the citrus market in 2025 was worse than expected. With the overall increase in production capacity, fruit prices fell, and some fruit growers fell into the problem of a bumper harvest but difficulty in increasing income. Li Kaifeng, Vice President of XAG, found in his research that navel orange cultivation now faces two major risks: market price risk and pest and disease risk. Southern Jiangxi navel oranges stand out for their high-quality fruit, but with expanding output, more similar competing products, and diversified consumer choices, market competition has become increasingly fierce, and prices show greater volatility. Similar products differ significantly in price due to differences in quality, specifications and sales channels. Pest and disease risk increases the difficulty of cultivation during the growing period. Huanglongbing is a major threat to Jiangxi navel oranges; it can turn leaves yellow and make fruit green and astringent. Once infected, it spreads quickly and can only be eradicated by cutting down the trees, which is an irreparable loss for fruit growers. Market fluctuations and pest and disease risks have pushed competition in the navel orange industry from "competing on yield" to "competing on quality," and have also prompted orchard management to shift from "knowing how to grow fruit" to "knowing how to run a business." In terms of orchard planting, growers need to upgrade along the directions of marketing, hardware, technology and branding. Brand comes from trust, and trust is supported by reliable quality. XAG user Sui Xianglong was once an enterprise manager and later came to Ganzhou to grow navel oranges locally. This is exactly his idea: reputation is very important, and the key to reputation is quality. He does not pursue how much mass production, but only hopes to "grow every orchard well, and then sell every box of fruit well." What affects fruit quality is not a single link; fertilizer management, pest and disease control, and post-harvest checks are all interconnected, among which water and fertilizer management is the core and plant protection is the key. Sui Xianglong's approach is to combine the different growth stages of the fruit trees, use chemical fertilizers appropriately, increase the proportion of organic fertilizer application, supply according to need, and avoid blind input. The transformation from "knowing how to farm" to "knowing how to run a business" cannot be separated from the upgrading of hardware facilities. In water and fertilizer management, the smart integrated water and fertilizer system is the foundation for growing high-quality fruit. Through scientific and precise fertilization, applying fertilizer according to tree age, tree vigor and different growth periods can greatly reduce root damage and waste and improve water and fertilizer use efficiency. The XAG smart water and fertilizer system consists of a local server connected to smart electric valves, smart fertilizer applicators and remote pump house switches and other equipment, forming a complete farm management network. With only remote operation via a mobile phone, the system can automatically irrigate in rotation, automatically balance pressure, and deliver water and fertilizer evenly near the root system of the fruit trees, providing a stable environment for the fruit trees to grow well. Calculating the orchard's economic accounts Turning saved costs into profit Having been rooted in the agricultural frontline for nearly ten years, Yi Binghong has long been deeply engaged in agricultural IoT and agricultural big data. He observed that under the dual pressure of purchase prices and pests and diseases, if the orchard's economic accounts are calculated well, the saved costs are equivalent to profit. The extensive management model of the past was time-consuming and labor-intensive, with high costs and low efficiency, and could not match consumers' new needs. Managing the farm with the mindset of managing a factory and using intelligence to reduce production costs is where the breakthrough lies. Through digital statistics of field equipment costs, refined management is achieved, so that every expense can be traced; using intelligence to accurately calculate the operation area and liquid medicine dosage avoids waste and improves management efficiency. This concept has been verified in the orchard of XAG user Sui Xianglong. Every year from June to September is the key period for preventing and controlling Huanglongbing, and plant protection is tight in time and heavy in task. In the past, manual spraying required at least 2 people at a time and took 1.5 to 2 days. Now he uses the XAG P100 Pro agricultural drone, operated by himself alone, and it can be completed in only 1 hour, with input costs dropping sharply. The saved costs and time were ultimately transformed into quality and reputation. Sui Xianglong's orchard, as an advanced case, has appeared on multiple CCTV programs and won many honors, including the championship of Jiangxi Province's "Best Original Ecological Orchard." The intelligent management solution has freed him from heavy farming work and given him the confidence to strive for perfection, making him a vivid local example of growing fruit with technology and prospering agriculture with quality. Sui Xianglong's practice is a microcosm of XAG empowering farmers with technology. In order to further break the bottleneck of labor costs and maximize farmers' profit margins, XAG X series agricultural robots emerged and opened a new era of smart farms. Agricultural drones, agricultural drone stations and smart dosing and filling machines combine to form agricultural robots, which can achieve one-stop automated operations of flight work, pesticide mixing and filling, and charging and cleaning, reducing manpower input in intermediate battery replacement and liquid mixing steps, further liberating the productivity of orchard management, allowing people to devote more energy to business decisions and calculate the accounts more carefully. Passing the torch From pioneering the industry to taking root with technology In Jiangxi's economic landscape, the navel orange industry occupies an important position and is a pillar industry for enriching farmers through agriculture. It once helped more than one million people in the old revolutionary areas of Ganzhou escape poverty and increase income, and is called the "fruit of prosperity" by local people. The vigorous development of the southern Jiangxi navel orange industry cannot be separated from the contribution of "the first person of southern Jiangxi navel oranges" — Yuan Shougen. In the late 1960s, Yuan Shougen brought the newly introduced foreign "Washington" navel orange variety back to Xinfeng County, Ganzhou, and guarded 156 seedlings until they successfully bore fruit, driving the southern Jiangxi navel orange industry to grow from nothing. Over the following decades, he long studied and promoted planting techniques, compiled regulation books, and proposed scientific prevention and control measures during the outbreak of Huanglongbing, laying the foundation for the industry's large-scale development and for weathering the crisis. After retirement, he remained active on the frontline, insisting on providing free services to fruit growers and actively offering suggestions. At this New Farmer Conference, Mr. Yuan also attended the scene to discuss with us the future development path of navel orange cultivation. Previous generations worked silently and shed sweat, laying the foundation of the southern Jiangxi navel orange industry and building confidence and hope for local people. Today, the question for orange growers has shifted from how to "grow them" to how to "grow them well." Facing new challenges, XAG has taken up the baton and is accompanying farmers to find new solutions together. We hope to use advanced technology to drive changes in production methods, let machines take over repetitive, tedious and laborious farming work, and return precious time and energy to people. Advanced smart equipment and digital platforms ultimately need people to deliver them to orchards and implement them in fields. Last-mile localized services make agricultural technology no longer distant and turn it into genuinely usable tools. XAG partner Liu Xianwu's team is a witness to XAG's localized service teams. Having worked in the fields for more than twenty years, Liu Xianwu brought experience grown from the land into localized services and built a distributor team that understands terrain, farming seasons and technology. Targeting Ganzhou's hilly terrain, they complete orchard surveying and mapping for every customer, produce exclusive three-dimensional route maps, and provide personalized services. Navel orange plant protection uses a large amount of pesticide and water, and diluted liquid medicine should not be stored for long. If a drone breaks down, it must be repaired immediately; otherwise, the prepared liquid medicine will lose effectiveness after being left for a long time, causing relatively large losses. Therefore, Liu Xianwu's team keeps 2 backup machines on standby at all times to ensure users' operations are not interrupted. As both a service provider and a grower himself, Liu Xianwu has a deeper understanding of the hardships of planting. Therefore, rooting new technologies in the fields and helping every user manage more easily and grow better has always been his belief. As a technology empowerment platform created by XAG for agricultural producers worldwide, the significance of the New Farmer Conference also lies in this. We hope that through technology sharing, experience exchange and product demonstrations, we can gather more new farmers who are interested in and have needs for smart agriculture solutions, so that in the collision of ideas and practical experience they can embrace new concepts and gain new inspiration. At the conference site, products including XAG X series agricultural robots, P series agricultural drones, R series unmanned vehicles, the smart water and fertilizer management system, and the APC agricultural machinery autopilot also demonstrated precise, efficient and intelligent operational capabilities in real navel orange orchards, allowing participating new farmers to experience up close the changes brought by agricultural technology. Agricultural production is always full of uncertainty. Between sweat and harvest, there are always many unpredictable difficulties. Often sowing, always hoping, sometimes harvesting — this has become the helpless reality for many cultivators. The development of agricultural technology may not be able to change weather or disease, but it can make every sowing, irrigation and spraying more timely, precise and traceable, helping people find a sense of security amid uncertainty. We hope that in the future, agricultural production can be: often sowing, always hoping, and ultimately harvesting.