China completes 75% of summer wheat harvest

About 75 percent of summer wheat had been harvested nationwide as of Tuesday afternoon, totaling 260 million mu (about 17.3 million hectares), according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

On Tuesday alone, 13.8 million mu of summer wheat were harvested, with 196,600 combine harvesters in operation, compared to 10.37 million mu and 197,200 harvesters on the same day last year, the ministry said.

Summer wheat refers to seasonal wheat sown in autumn and winter of the previous year or spring of the current year and harvested in summer. According to Central China Television, China's grain production includes summer grain, early rice and autumn grain, with summer grain contributing roughly 21 percent of the annual grain output.

The majority of summer grain — over 90 percent — consists of summer wheat, which is typically harvested from mid-May to June each year.

The summer wheat harvest is progressing well across several provinces in China, the ministry said. In Jiangsu, the harvest is nearly complete, while over 80 percent of the wheat has been harvested in Shaanxi, more than 60 percent in Shanxi, nearly 60 percent in Shandong, and over a quarter in Hebei.

The efficiency of the harvest has been enhanced by recent upgrades in agricultural machinery, with subsidies supporting the purchase of new equipment and the update of old ones, according to the ministry.

Additionally, more combine harvesters equipped with intelligent technologies such as assisted driving, operation quality monitoring, and touch-screen operation terminals have been deployed to the front lines of the wheat harvest sites.

Meteorological departments forecast the end of the current round of widespread rainfall, which began on June 6, with clearer skies expected in most wheat-producing areas, accelerating wheat maturation and harvest, the agriculture ministry said.