As the weather cools down, it's the critical period for the care of strawberries. In the strawberry cultivation greenhouses of Ruihua Orchard, strawberries don't "live" in the soil, but "live" on multi-tiered cultivation racks.

Walking into the strawberry greenhouse of Ruihua Orchard, you will see rows of high-rise strawberry racks are neatly arranged. The lush green strawberry seedlings stretch their leaves and branches in the elevated planting troughs, with white flowers dotted here and there, showing a pleasing growth.

"The white flowers indicate that the strawberries have entered their full blooming stage. When the flowers are about 90 percent open, bees will work in the greenhouse to pollinate, ensuring a bountiful harvest this year," said Lu Hongming, deputy manager of the Integrated Business Department of Ruihua Orchard. Compared to traditional ground planting, the elevated planting model saves labor and effort, and is also more convenient for city dwellers and tourists to come and pick. At the same time, the elevated cultivation method increases land use efficiency, allowing for 1.5 times more seedlings to be planted, and the yield per unit area can be increased by more than three times.

To grow strawberries of better quality, the orchard uses a substrate soil for planting, made from coconut coir, peat, and perlite, mixed in the most suitable ratio for strawberries, greatly reducing the risk of soil-borne diseases and pests. In addition, a fully automatic water purifier and a water-fertilizer integrated machine have been introduced, relying on customized water-fertilizer formulas to achieve intelligent and data-driven management throughout the entire strawberry cultivation process, striving to create an ecological strawberry agricultural product with low pesticide residues and high efficiency. "The strawberries in the greenhouse will gradually ripen in December, enter the peak production period in January next year, and the picking period can last until the end of May," Lu said.