Crops are planted using soilless culture technology at an industrial greenhouse in Lanling county, Shandong province. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Shandong has empowered modern agriculture development with new technologies and models in order to realize intelligent, standardized and large-scale development of the agriculture industry.

Lettuce planting is automated and intelligently controlled in the Lyuwochuan Smart Agriculture Demonstration Park in Linyi's Lanling county. It takes roughly 40 days from sowing to harvesting, which is a third less time than traditional planting methods.

With almost no humans in sight and the entire process handled by internet-of-things brains, the 25,500-square-meter smart vegetable factory can produce more than three tons of lettuce each day, which is three times as much as a typical greenhouse.

These lettuce products, which cost about $6.28 per kilogram, are directly supplied to high-end markets in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

"Temperature, humidity, fertilizer, and so on can be precisely adjusted through the control system to keep vegetables in an optimal growth environment, breaking the seasonal limit and increasing production and income," said a senior manager from the Lyuwochuan Smart Agriculture Demonstration Park.

More than 30 modern agricultural enterprises like Lyuwochuan have been set up in Lanling.

Lanling explores new techniques, devices and management modes to carry out smart farming. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

Lanling has also invested more than 10 billion yuan ($1.57 billion) to build an agricultural enterprise park, which integrates smart agricultural planting, intensive processing of agricultural products and e-commerce. When the park is put into operation, the total agricultural output value will be increased by 2.1 billion yuan.

Last year, Shandong established three national modern agricultural industrial parks, eight demonstration parks for the integrated development of rural industries, and two advantageous industrial clusters, all of which rank first in the country.

This year, the province will promote the construction of agricultural modernization demonstration zones and industrial parks.