After a period of storage, Dandong's Hanfu apples have become a sought-after fruit on the market. It is sometimes even sold at a price 10 times higher than that of common apples.

Fuyun Hanfu Apple Production Cooperative is located in the Helong Manchu ethnic township in Donggang. There, Yu Bo, chairman of the cooperative directs workers to load and transport Hanfu apples. Each apple weighs over 0.5 kg and a carton of them reach 5 kg.

"They are golden apples. The wholesale price has raised to more than 200 yuan ($ 31.58) a carton here. In Shanghai's supermarkets, the price can reach as high as over 300 yuan a carton," says Yu Bo.

The cooperative has 151 members. Since the end of October, it has delivered 50,000 cartons of fine Hanfu apples to Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other big cities. Yu Bo said that the reason for the popularity of Hanfu apples among high-end consumers of large cities is their high quality which can be attributed to increasingly advanced technologies.

Farmer Zhang Hongfeng from Kanxia village, Shizijie township, harvested 100,000 kg of Hanfu apples this year. They were sold for 8 yuan per kilo on average. The price of fine apples among them reached 12 yuan per kilo.

"Two years ago my apples would only be sold at half of today's price or less." Zhang Hongfeng told us.

In the early days when he contracted the orchard, the quality of the apples stagnated at a low level because of outdated varieties and backward management. Later, new technologies such as fruit bagging and reflective membranes were adopted, and both the output and quality of the apples improved.

In his orchard, pipelines for water-saving irrigation have just been implemented. "With them, we will no longer worry about dry seasons," said Zhang Hongfeng. He credited the continuous increase of output to the new technologies promoted by Donggang's fruit tree station.

With the application of new technologies, the quality of Donggang's Hanfu apples has continuously improved and they have even won the first place at Liaoning (Shenyang) International Agriculture Exposition for two consecutive sessions, in 2009 and 2011.

Edited by Chen Zhilin and Rakhee