Research Of Zhejiang Citrus In The Ming And Qing Dynasties

The climate in Zhejiang Province is warm and humid. It has a long history for citrus cultivation, which also has all kinds of varieties. It had documented exactly Zhejiang’s citrus as early as the Three Kingdoms Period. In the dynasty of Tang and Song, the area of citrus had been expanded, varieties had been increased the quality of citrus was of high level. The Record of Citrus, written in North Song dynasty, recorded the cultivation techniques, reflects the prosperity of this period’s citrus. In the dynasty of Ming and Qing, the technology had further development, which was reflected by a wide range of space, raise of the citrus economy, as well as prosperous varieties.The cultivation area in Ming and Qing period was much broader than in Tang and Song’s. There were more than eleven states had citrus cultivation, and the most famous of those were Jinhua state and Chuzhou state. And from the overall spatial distribution look, Wenzhou, Taizhou, Quzhou, Hangzhou, are the main citrus production areas in zhejiang. Meanwhile, according to the prefectures territory citrus varieties from the local history of the Ming and Qing, we can see from the unprecedented pomp that kinds of citrus varieties, such as the developing planting of pomelo.In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Zhejiang citrus varieties more than the Tang and Song Dynasties. There appeared some new citrus varieties, included gold shells, bergamot, round, sweet orange, early orange, red orange, red lacquer dish. The citrus varieites, such as trifoliate, the Louvre, the beans, citron, grapefruit, lime, orange, yellow orange, milk orange, mandarin orange, green orange, the Ougan, Dongting Kom, which inherited the Song and Yuan Dynasties, continue to develop in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the cultivated area also expanded.Due to wide varieties of citrus in Ming and Qing period, there appeared many local orange varieties, such as Wang Zhou’s tangerine in Fuyang town, Wenzhou’s mandarin orange, Thaizhou’s milk chrysanthemum, Quzhou’s red orange, Dinghai’s kumquat and so on. Among those oranges, Wangzhou’s tangerine in Fuyang and Wenzhou’s mandarin orange had already been famous in the world in the Tang and Song dynasties, but the development was on the wane in Qing dynasty. Taizhou’s milk orange is always local good stock. Quzhou’s red orange, Tangqi’s tangerine and Dinghai’s kumquat were new development new variety in the Ming and qing dynasties. This was because of its good quality and thrive cultivation, Quzhou’s red orange, Tangqi’s tangerine are continuing developing so far. The Dinghai’s kumquat declined in the Republic of China. The cultivation of local famous cirtus influenced the cirtus planting.Citrus character is a citrus market-key.Zhejiang citrus cultivation techniques of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which followed the foundation of the Song and Yuan cultivation techniques, had different levels of development and improvement. Development of citrus cultivation techniques, mainly included new trifoliate rootstock for grafting citrus in the grafted breeding, an increase of animal fertilizer and Mao gray with burnt insects in the fertilizer types, created fire insects and spead oyster gray methods of anti-pest. For the citrus storage methods, Zhejiang new use of the beans collected method and the cylinder collected method in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. On the basis of the inherited citrus processing and utilization of predecessors, Zhejiang People also created Zhejiang regional specialties, orange honey,crab stuffed orange, orange Soy.Zhejiang citrus cultivation commercialize continuously impoved in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In zhejiang province, the main cultivated area generally appeared to the orange family who cultivated oranges as an inheritance, also appeared special orange city. There have high economic benefits which planting the citrus. The farmers planting citrus earn money to charge and pay taxes, also appeared the rich kinds who planted oranges. Citrus planting area expands unceasingly, or even appeared thousands of acres of orange. The development of citrus commercialization, also performed in zhejiang citrus market broad and transportion developed. Zhejiang citrus market basically had Hangzhou, Suzhou, The capital. Water transportation and land transportation were the main mode of transportation. Water transportation included inland water transportation and sea transportation. Hangzhou was an important transit center in China, also Suzhou was a center of transition to north of China.