A vocational training school sent pruning tools to a community of Lijiang on Oct 19 to support a course designed to relieve villagers’ poverty.

Many villagers gathered at the school waiting to get their tools spoke highly of the walnut planting project launched in 2010.

“We lived a very difficult life before we started to plant walnuts. My family used to live on my slender monthly income of 200 to 300 yuan ($29.7 to $44.5) as a migrant worker. But we live much better now thanks to the sales income of walnuts adding to the wage I get through working outside the village,” said an old man surnamed He.

He added that the yields of walnuts are much higher thanks to training on sprouting and fertilization organized by the local government.

Mu Zhirong, a senior agronomist of the Old Town’s gardening department, was invited to teach seed selection, grafting, fertilization and disease and pest control.

The walnuts this year had a yield of 40 tons bringing income of 480,000 yuan ($71,000) in total to the villagers.

Villagers watch Mu Zhirong, a senior agronomist, prune a walnut tree on Oct 19. [Photo/ynci.cn]

Villagers from Lijiang Old Town district listen carefully to a lecture by a local senior agronomist on Oct 19. [Photo/ynci.cn]