Place an order with a light tap, and flowers will arrive the next day. Today, high-quality fresh cut flowers such as roses, lilies, and peonies from the Lanzhou New Area Modern Agricultural Demonstration Park are being delivered directly from smart greenhouses to thousands of households through e-commerce livestreams, online platforms, and other online channels—this is not only an innovation in sales methods but also a vivid microcosm of Lanzhou's flower industry's transition from "planting and selling" to high-quality development across the entire chain.
A small bouquet of flowers reflects the industrial vitality of a city. In recent years, Lanzhou has leveraged the unique climate endowment of the northwest, which is cool and sunny, tackling challenges through technology, expanding market scope, and empowering through integration, promoting the flower industry from the initial model of "planting and selling flowers" to a new stage of high-quality development across the entire chain of "quality seed cultivation, smart planting, domestic and international circulation, and integration of agriculture and tourism." One flower invigorates a hundred industries, one region carries the whole region—Jincheng's transformation in the flower economy is a typical example of Lanzhou's characteristic modern agricultural transformation and upgrading, urban-rural integration and quality improvement, and consumption economy expansion.
Industry quality improvement is rooted in technology. For a long time, the flower industry in Northwest China has been constrained by shortcomings such as single germplasm, extensive planting, concentrated flowering periods, and technological lag, facing the dilemma of "having resources but no advantages, yield but no brand." The key to achieving a leapfrog in Lanzhou's flower industry is to firmly grasp the two golden keys of seed industry innovation and smart production, breaking industrial bottlenecks at the source.
In recent years, Lanzhou has continuously strengthened its ability to independently control germplasm resources, building an integrated breeding system for introduction, domestication, breeding, and promotion, achieving localization of foreign varieties, quality of local varieties, and independent development of specialty varieties. By deepening collaborative innovation among industry, academia, and research, and gathering the technical strength of research institutes and leading enterprises, the company will continuously overcome the challenges of cultivating mainstream flower varieties such as roses and peonies, gradually reduce its heavy dependence on foreign seedlings, and make high-quality varieties the core support for industrial upgrades.
High-quality seeds are the foundation of the industry, and smart planting is the key to improving quality and efficiency. Relying on large-scale intelligent greenhouse construction, Lanzhou's flower production has moved away from the weather-dependent planting model, achieving intelligent control and standardized production of all elements including temperature, light, water, fertilizer, and air. Refined, digital, and green management has made flower quality more stable, product loss reduced, and market time controllable, forming a unique high-quality fresh cut flower production capacity in the cool northwest region, proving the powerful momentum of technology empowering traditional agriculture.
Industry strength depends on the market. From fields and flower fields to thousands of households, from local sales to nationwide distribution, and then to overseas expansion, the biggest breakthrough in Lanzhou's flower industry lies in fully integrating the internal and external circulation of production and sales, completing the value leap from "origin products" to "market goods."
Leveraging the gateway advantage of the "Belt and Road" initiative, Lanzhou's flower industry has further broadened its open horizons, steadily shifting from "mainly domestic sales" to "dual circulation both domestic and international." From local fragrance to nationwide marketing and then to overseas expansion, the multi-level, broad-scope, and all-around market pattern has given Lanzhou's flower industry greater confidence and resilience for development.
Industrial value enhancement depends on integration. The vitality of modern specialty agriculture lies in breaking out of a single production mindset and promoting deep integration of primary, secondary, and tertiary industries. Lanzhou's flower industry continues to amplify the diverse value of "Flower+," transforming the resource advantage of a single flower into a development advantage for comprehensive revitalization. Relying on the unique flower resources of various counties and districts, Lanzhou promotes deep integration of flower sea landscapes, festivals, and rural tourism, achieving a "flower carries a scene," one scenic spot invigorates one industry, and one industry enriches the region. Yuzhong peonies, Yongdeng roses, and the new district's flower sea bloom in multiple locations, forming a complete business model of flower viewing, agricultural experiences, product processing, and leisure vacations, promoting rural landscape upgrades, rural business upgrades, and rural population gathering. Meanwhile, immersive consumption such as flower study tours, floral experiences, cultural and creative crafts, and pastoral leisure continues to heat up, driving the industry from "selling products" to "selling scenery, experiences, and services," and continuously lengthening and thickening the industrial value chain.
Looking at the development trajectory of Lanzhou's flower industry, the logic of high-quality development is clear: strengthening the foundation through technology, expanding space through the market, and enhancing value through integration. From tackling seedling challenges to solidify the industrial foundation to achieving quality breakthroughs through smart planting; From activating the consumer market through online and offline linkage, to expanding the development pattern through two-way internal and external openness; From a single agricultural production to deep integration of agriculture, tourism, and culture, Lanzhou's flower industry has already forged a path of distinctive, premium, diversified, and modernized upgrades.
Small flowers carry the grand narrative of industrial transformation, new momentum for rural revitalization, and a new picture of urban consumption upgrading. Looking ahead, with continuous breakthroughs in germplasm innovation, widespread adoption of smart planting, continuous improvement of market systems, and enrichment of integrated business formats, Lanzhou's flower industry will surely keep releasing fragrant momentum, blooming greater value through modern agricultural quality improvement, urban-rural integration development, cultural tourism consumption upgrades, and external opening-up, injecting a continuous stream of floral vitality into the region's high-quality development. (Reporter Ma Yanling, text/photos)