Agricultural researchers in Tainan have modified and reproduced an endangered garden orchid species, creating a commercial market for the new breed to protect the native plant from flower thieves, a laboratory said on Tuesday.
After years of experiments, the Tainan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, a botanical laboratory run by the Council of Agriculture, has bred the purple garden orchid (Spathoglottis pubescens) and modified it into the fifth-generation yellow-flowered Tainan No. 5, through crossbreeding, it said in a statement.
The original orchid, which is native to Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島), has become “critically endangered” in the past few years due to landslides, typhoons and human activity, station director Yang Hung-ying (楊宏瑛) said.
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
Some people have traveled upstream of Lanyu’s Tungching Creek (東清溪) to dig up the flowers, removing them from their original habitat, the station said.
In an attempt to save the species, the station in 2003 began collecting samples, recreating the orchid’s native environment in the lab and then crossbreeding it, it said.
After years of experiments and trials, the station has bred five new kinds of garden orchids, while also developing methods to grow them on a commercial scale.
The first and second-generation orchids, Tainan No. 1 and Tainan No. 2, which were first cultivated in 2012, had small flowers, the station said.
With the development of the third, fourth and fifth generations, the flowers have become bigger, their life spans longer and their color has shifted from red-violet to yellow, making them suitable for home cultivation in southern Taiwan, it said.
Tainan No. 5 can grow as tall as 75cm, live two to three years — longer than the previous six-month life span of its predecessors — and are more resistant to pests, it said.
The new breeds would make it unnecessary to dig up the plants on Lanyu, as they can now be purchased in flower markets, the station said.
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