Mr, Li from Duandian Town Yinong Cooperative of Ezhou City drove the “Wode” combine harvester into the land with mature sesames. The over 1m high sesame plants were swallowed into harvester in rows; the shattered straws were discharged back to the land, while the threshed sesame seeds are stored in cabin. The sesame land with area of dozens of mu was harvested completely. “It pushes forward the mechanical production scale of sesames in China greatly”, said Researcher Zhang Haiyang with praise the other day after live demonstration. Zhang is Chief Scientist of China Characteristic Oil Plants Industry Technology System.

Sesame enjoys the reputation of “Queen” among oil plants. China is one of the main producing countries of sesame, and also the largest consumption country in the world. The history of production is over 2100 years. From the ancient time, sesame production, from seeding to harvest, wholly depended on laborers with high work intensity. Nowadays, the rural laborers are transferred greatly, and less people are growing sesames. The plantation area is 1/3 less. The annual import volume of sesame in China is 700,000t-900,000t, accounting for over 55% of total consumption.

From 2010, Researcher Zhang Xiurong of Oil Crops Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences led the innovation team to break through technical difficulties for mechanical protection of sesames. They bred the new sesame variety “Zhongzhi 78” suitable for mechanical plantation; created “seven-in-one” simple combined and direct sowing technology to finish seven process of stilling, ridging, furrowing, fertilizing, sowing, closing up and weeding; developed UAV efficient prevention and control to save labor and strength for weeding, insect prevention, disease prevention and fertilizer control; developed the mature new drying technology to rapidly dewater the sesame uniformly; developed mechanical combined harvest technology to finish harvest, threshing, separation and returning straw to field at one time.

Since 2016, the Oil Crops Research Institute has carried technical integration in Duandian Town continuously and built nearly 1000mu sesame mechanical production standard demonstration zone, radiating nearby 100,000land. In that way, the local sesame production is turned from “complete labor” to “whole process mechanical”, and cost is reduced from RMB700 Yuan to RMB300 Yuan per mu area. The cost saving and efficient increment per mu area is RMB 400 Yuan.