Daylily flowers nourish dry land, life

"Daylilies are about the same height as people, so there's no need to bend over to pick the flowers. It's not very tiring work, but I've got suntanned hands recently," she said.

Su makes 2 yuan (about 28 US cents) for every kilo of flowers she picks, bringing home about 100 yuan every day.

The harvesting season lasts from late June to early August, during which time there are up to 15,000 flower pickers working in the county, out on the farmland at the same time each day.

Local daylily grower Zhang Wanfeng hires nearly 40 workers for his 3.3-hectare daylily farm. Sleeping only three or four hours a day, Zhang is constantly busy, driving the workers to the farm after midnight, then weighing, steaming and drying the picked flowers or putting them into cold storage in the daytime.

He says that, in the past, the flower pickers were mainly non-locals and high-school or university students on vacation. This year, however, things are a little different.

"This year, with the epidemic mostly stopping non-local workers from coming, I mainly hire nearby villagers and those who haven't resumed work," he said.

The farm brings Zhang profits of between 75,000 yuan and 150,000 yuan per hectare.

"By growing daylilies, farmers from our village have turned their shabby adobe houses into brick ones, and almost every household has a car now," he said.