Recently, the 2019 High School Fruit Grafting and Pruning Skills Competition hosted by the Ministry of Education's Horticulture (including Tea Science) Professional Teaching Guidance Subcommittee and hosted by Huazhong Agricultural University was held in Wuhan, Hubei. After three rounds of fierce competition, our students won three personal second prizes and four group second prizes in the competition.

   The competition is divided into three parts. The first is the grafting skill competition where Du Li has been used as the rootstock to evaluate students' practical operation skills. The second is the fruit tree pruning competition. The adult pear tree is used as the pruning object and the single tree is used as a pruning unit. The judge judges each pruning result based on the evaluation index. The last is the fruit tree theory knowledge competition, which mainly assesses the students' mastery of fruit tree expertise. It includes micro-speaking sessions, giving lectures on the topics of horticulture and civilization, horticulture and human, and horticulture and health, in order to broaden the knowledge of horticultural students and jointly imagine the future development of gardening.

    As a key agricultural university in South China, since receiving notice of the competition, our college has attached great importance to preparations and has organized student registration and training guidance since July. In the end, our student team (members: Huang Yan, Zhuo Maogen, Zhao Shili, and Wang Shilei), under the guidance of Teacher Zhou Biyan from the fruit tree department, won a number of personal second prizes and team second prizes.

   The competition aims to set up a platform for the exchange and competition of fruit tree teachers and students in China's colleges and universities. Through the mutual exchange and competition of fruit tree students in major universities, students 'interest in the fruit tree specialty will be stimulated, which will be used to complement each other and improve students' practice. Skills to cultivate new agricultural talents with innovative spirit and strong practical ability, and contribute to the development of the theory and practice of the fruit tree discipline in China and the cause of strengthening agriculture and promoting agriculture.

  (Photo: Fruit Tree Grafting Team, Wang Manfei / Text: Wang Manfei)