In July, rapeseed flowers turn the Haomen Valley yellow. A 2025 report follows a cooperative growing the Beiyou 4 variety and describes fields watched by local agricultural workers during the growing season. The flowering landscape draws the eye, but the plants are also a crop nearing seed formation. For growers, a field’s color belongs to a longer cycle that will continue after the petals fall.
From the journal
Two Seasons in the Menyuan Rapeseed Field
Summer flowering and autumn harvest show two different moments in Menyuan’s spring-rapeseed year, from field color to seed and oil.
July in the Haomen Valley
September and the work of harvest
A 2023 report photographed harvest work in Menyuan in September, when oilseed rape had matured and machines moved through the fields. It also described village oil presses, where some harvested seed became cooking oil locally. The two seasonal scenes—summer flowering and autumn cutting—show why the same crop appears in both tourism images and agricultural life. One season offers color; another brings seed from the field toward storage, pressing and sale.
