卷首语A note before the series
背靠南海、坐拥雷州半岛，充足的阳光和雨水，滋养出湛江生机勃勃的热带特色农业。
With the South China Sea at its back and the Leizhou Peninsula underfoot, sun and rain have given Zhanjiang a tropical agriculture of its own.
湛江地处热带北缘，是国内数一数二的热带作物主产区。除了早已出圈的徐闻菠萝、遂溪火山红薯、廉江红橙、覃斗芒果，这里的橡胶、剑麻同样实力不俗，稳稳撑起了湛江热带农业的另一片天地。
Zhanjiang sits on the northern edge of the tropics, and it is one of the country’s main centres for tropical crops. Pineapple, sweet potato, red orange, and mango are the names people already know. Rubber and sisal hold up another part of the same landscape.
本期系列报道，带你读懂湛江热带农产品。每一种好物，都藏着一方水土的滋养，更藏着代代农人打拼的故事。从一棵小树苗到万亩产业，从单一原料到完整产业链——一起走进湛江，看热带农业如何从无到有、从大到强，一步步成长崛起。
This series is a way into those crops. Each one carries a place, and the people who worked it. From a seedling to a wide planting, from a raw material to a full chain — the pieces follow how this agriculture was built, and then made larger.
说到天然橡胶，很多人第一时间想到的都是海南、云南。但很少有人知道，湛江雷州半岛的这片红土地上，藏着新中国橡胶产业太多「第一次」——全国第一座浓缩乳胶加工厂、第一条杂胶标准胶连续生产线，都诞生在这里。
Natural rubber makes people think of Hainan and Yunnan. Fewer people know that the red earth of the Leizhou Peninsula holds several of the industry’s firsts in the new China: the country’s first concentrated-latex plant, and the first continuous line for standard rubber made from scrap.
从早年开荒拓土、建起一座座「全国第一」，到啃下航空轮胎专用胶国产化的硬骨头，再到如今农户们摸索出「胶果共生」的林下种养新路子——七十年来，一滴滴洁白的胶乳，默默记录着湛江橡胶从无到有、从小到大、从弱到强的蜕变。
The story runs from opening the land and building those firsts, to making a domestic rubber for aircraft tyres, to farmers planting fruit under the trees. Over seventy years the latex has recorded a change from nothing, to something small, to something that can stand.
家国万里，系于一株胶树A national task, hung on one tree
湛江橡胶产业的落地之初就紧扣国家的战略需求。上世纪中叶，橡胶作为重要战略物资，在国外垄断封锁下，国内一胶难求。
Rubber arrived here as a strategic need. In the middle of the last century it was scarce at home, and supply from abroad was closed off.
1951年冬天，十万垦荒大军奔赴雷州半岛开荒种胶。短短半年时间，开荒近百万亩，抢运橡胶种子61.8万斤，培育出7000多万株橡胶苗。也正是从这时起，湛江成为了新中国天然橡胶产业的核心发源地之一。与此同时，来自湛江的一批批橡胶种苗源源不断输送至广东、广西、云南等多地，为全国橡胶产业发展点燃星火。
In the winter of 1951 a force of about 100,000 people went to Leizhou to open land and plant rubber. In half a year they cleared nearly a million mu, moved 309 tonnes of seed, and raised more than 70 million seedlings. From then on Zhanjiang was one of the sources of natural rubber in the new China. Seedlings also went on to Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, and elsewhere.
华南热带作物科学研究所徐闻试验站（今中国热科院南亚热带作物研究所前身）成立后，几代科研人接力攻关，最终突破地域限制，实现橡胶树在北纬18至24度区域规模化种植，打破17度以北无法种植橡胶的断言。
After the Xuwen station of the South China institute was set up — it later became the South Subtropical Crops Research Institute — generations of researchers pushed the tree past the old line. Rubber was planted at scale between 18 and 24 degrees north, against the claim that it could not grow north of 17.
七十年时光流转，湛江胶林一步步突破从无到有的困境，早已跳出老一辈记忆里「一把胶刀、一个胶碗」的传统劳作模样。
Seventy years on, the plantations are no longer the knife-and-cup work that an older generation remembers.
南华农场推广抗风高产的橡胶新品种，让亩产稳步提升约两成；搭配北斗智能农机作业，开沟、定植误差控制在3厘米以内，种植方式更标准、更精细。
Nanhua Farm has pushed wind-resistant, higher-yielding varieties, and yield per mu has risen by about a fifth. With Beidou-guided machines, the error in furrows and planting is held within 3 centimetres.
种胶人也一直在琢磨，如何让这片胶林产出更多价值，摸索出林下套种模式，在胶林间种上斑兰叶、牛大力、菠萝等作物，真正实现一地多收。成熟的「胶果共生」模式效益可观，单单一亩林地，菠萝产量就能达到7000多斤。
Growers have also asked what else the land can give. Under the trees they plant pandan, Niu Dali, and pineapple. In a mature mixed planting, one mu of woodland can yield more than 3,500 kilograms of pineapple.
不止种地增收，胶林的新价值也越来越多。农业观光、自然研学陆续落地，孩子们可以走进林间，亲眼看见胶乳缓缓流出的过程。历经百年成长的胶林，变成了可观赏、可体验、可科普的多元价值空间。
The woodland is also a place to visit and to learn. Children can walk in and watch the latex come out. A plantation a century in the making is now something to see, to try, and to explain.
持续扩容Processing, and a wider chain
加工和科研，一直是湛江橡胶最硬核的底气。依托中国热科院加工所的技术支撑，这里诞生了新中国第一座浓缩乳胶厂、第一座烟胶片加工厂，还有国内首条杂胶标准胶连续生产线，搭建起国内领先、自主可控的橡胶加工技术体系。
Processing and research are the hard part of the local advantage. With the processing institute of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, this place built the new China’s first concentrated-latex plant, the first smoked-sheet plant, and the first continuous line for standard rubber from scrap — a processing system that can be run at home.
一代代科研人员扎根湛江深耕技术，不仅带动本地产业升级，还把成熟技术输出到东南亚、非洲等地，为全球橡胶产业发展贡献实打实的「湛江经验」。
Researchers based here have upgraded the local industry and taken mature methods to Southeast Asia and Africa.
天然橡胶具备突出的高弹性、抗撕裂、耐疲劳特性，广泛用于航空轮胎、各类车辆轮胎、医用手套等产品，是现代工业不可或缺的基础原料，不少高端领域难以用合成橡胶替代。
Natural rubber stretches, resists tearing, and takes fatigue. It goes into aircraft tyres, vehicle tyres, and medical gloves. In several high-end uses, synthetic rubber does not replace it.
长期的技术积累，换来关键领域的重大突破。2024年5月，依托热科院加工所的航空轮胎专用胶成功卖出第一单，彻底打破海外技术垄断，让国产飞机用上了自主研发的「橡胶鞋底」，填补了国内高端航空橡胶领域的空白。
The accumulation showed up in May 2024, when a rubber made for aircraft tyres, developed with the processing institute, made its first sale. It broke a foreign hold on the technology and filled a domestic gap in high-end aviation rubber.
不止天然橡胶，湛江橡胶产业还在持续扩容。中科炼化年产10万吨顺丁橡胶项目，2026年5月已全面开工，建成后将补齐华南高端合成橡胶的产能缺口，让区域橡胶产业链更完整。
The chain is still widening. A 100,000-tonne butadiene-rubber project at Zhongke Refining started in full in May 2026. When it is up, it is meant to fill a gap in high-end synthetic rubber in south China.
9月22日至24日，第一届湛江热带农产品促消费活动将在湛江奥林匹克体育中心盛大启幕。活动聚焦湛江热带农业特色优势，主打推介各类优质热带农产品，搭建高效的产销对接、品牌交流平台，全方位展现湛江热带农产品产业的硬核技术实力与热带农业的蓬勃活力。
From 22 to 24 September the first Zhanjiang consumption fair was to open at the Olympic Sports Centre: a table for producers and buyers, and a place to show the technical work behind the crops.
从雷州半岛的红土荒坡，到高端工业制造的广阔赛场，一株小小的橡胶树，串联起湛江七十余年产业攻坚、转型升级的奋斗篇章，也是湛江深耕特色产业、助力乡村振兴的生动缩影。
From a bare red slope to high-end manufacturing, one rubber tree ties together more than seventy years of building and rebuilding an industry. It is also a close picture of how a local specialism was made to support the countryside.
9月22日至24日，让我们共赴湛江热带农业之约，见证热带农产品的品牌力量，共享特色产业高质量发展的丰硕成果。
Those three days were the invitation: come and see what the brand, and the industry behind it, had become.