Farmer Chen Jun from Beihai in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, is perplexed by his gouard.

Chen belongs to those who use brains to grow plants. Last year, he spent much of his energy and money to import from outside provinces and plant a special bitter gourd, which he successfully fostered. A single gourd weighs as much as 1.5 kilograms, three times the ordinary weight.

However, consumers found the gourd strange, and thought growth hormones were used. Moreover, the gourd is too big for one meal.

With such a poor market, the man had to reduce the fertilizer to produce slimmer gourd.

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