Chinese Agricultural and Rural Scenes

4. Bringing in the Sheaves

In 1999, the spread of crop pests and diseases, caused by the persistent dry spell and unseasonably warm weather, threatened China's winter wheat production. Nearly one-third of China's winter wheat was affected by pests and plant diseases like red spiders, aphids, powdery mildew, and stripe rust. Almost all of the wheat strain varieties currently planted were not disease resistant, and growth was affected by the unusually warm and dry weather. Red spiders ravaged 400,000 hectares (988,000 acres) of wheat in drought-plagued Sha'anxi Province. Here in 2002 they transport the wheat crop in by hand. Picture by my friend Dot Garlow.