Photo shows rapeseed fields of Cheng Xueze in Zhanghu township, Wangjiang county, east China's Anhui Province. (People's Daily Online/Chen Ruotian)

In the vast rapeseed fields in Zhanghu township, Wangjiang county, east China's Anhui Province, drones buzz through the skies like worker bees.

"Now is the critical growing period for rapeseed," said Cheng Xueze, a major crop grower, while using a remote control to operate drones for fertilization.

Fifteen years ago, Cheng returned home to pursue agriculture. What he's doing now was unimaginable back then. He recalled that it used to take his family a full day to fertilize 20 mu (about 1.33 hectares) of farmland. Today, a drone can fertilize 280 mu of rapeseed fields in less than a day.

In 2016, a research center under the Institute of Cotton Research of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences was established in Wangjiang, offering a boost to the development of local agriculture.

In 2023, China Agricultural University and Anhui Agricultural University jointly founded a science and technology yard for cotton, grain and oil crops in the county. The science and technology yard program is a practical and integrated talent cultivation model.

The rapeseed planting area in Wangjiang county exceeds 520,000 mu, including 69 demonstration fields covering 100 mu each and 11 demonstration fields covering 1,000 mu each. Each experimental field has a digital archive containing data on soil moisture, weather, and plant growth, according to Zhou Kehai, deputy director of the science and technology yard for cotton, grain and oil crops in Wangjiang.