This photo taken on Aug. 10, 2023 shows rice seedlings in a modern agricultural industrial park in Wuchang, northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. (Xinhua/Zhang Tao) by Xinhua writer Fang Ning HARBIN, May 30 (Xinhua) — It is late in May, and paddy fields are featuring tender green rice seedlings in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, the country’s top grain producer.
Rice in the fields of Heilongjiang grow for more than 130 days until the October harvest period, which is longer than the growth cycle of paddy rice growing elsewhere in China, and yield the country’s premium rice. An hour’s drive from the provincial capital of Harbin, which recently hosted the eighth China-Russia Expo, vast swathes of black soil farmlands and paddy fields provide ideal conditions for grain production. The paddy rice growing area of Wuchang, a city administrated by Harbin, is regarded as Heilongjiang’s premier area for growing high-quality rice.
Walking along the edge of fields, I could barely imagine how Typhoon Doksuri had devastated this rice-producing area in August 2023. The typhoon triggered rare and significant floods just as rice plants began to form ears, leaving paddy fields inundated. “The flood water submerged my seedling greenhouse and destroyed my house,” said Liu Xiu, 66, as she explained the severity of the damage caused by last summer’s flooding in her village of Changbao, Wuchang.
According to the city’s agricultural department, nearly half of Wuchan.