The Council of Agriculture said it has made a breakthrough breeding the Venus slipper, a genus of orchids that could not be commercially grown due to planting difficulties, with the flower expected to be a rising star in the nation’s orchid industry.
The Venus slipper, comprising about 80 natural species in addition to artificial hybrids, is very rare and is listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Taoyuan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station researcher Lee Shu-chen (李淑真) said.
Trading in wild Venus slippers is prohibited, while artificially grown slipper orchids can only be traded conditionally, she said.
Alternatively, the Venus slipper could be grown using the plant’s side shoots to produce clones, but a plant might only produce two side shoots every year, making commercial production moot, she said.
However, the station has developed a tissue culture technique to stimulate the Venus slipper with appropriate hormones and nutrients to increase the side shoot production by between 150 and 500 percent and it is able to grow three generations in one year, she said.
“Clones and the parent strain have the same genes, so they might flower at the same time and produce the same flower,” she said.
About 80 plants can be cloned from a parent plant in one year and 6,400 additional clones could be produced in the following year, she said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Many Japanese couples are coming to Taiwan to obtain donated sperm or eggs for fertility treatment due to conservatism in their home country, Taiwan’s high standards and low costs, doctors said. One in every six couples in Japan is receiving infertility treatment, Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare data show. About 70,000 children are born in Japan every year through in vitro fertilization (IVF), or about one in every 11 children born. Few people accept donated reproductive cells in Japan due to a lack of clear regulations, leaving treatment in a “gray zone,” Taichung Nuwa Fertility Center medical director Wang Huai-ling (王懷麟)
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
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