Government-funded research has cultivated fungi and bacteria that could help farmers increase vegetable yields amid climate challenges, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday.
Extreme climate events pose a significant threat to Taiwan’s agriculture sector, which has sustained heavy economic losses from increasingly powerful typhoons, torrential rains, heat waves and dry spells, ministry officials told a news conference.
In 2021, the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station launched a joint program to enhance the climate resilience of crops and vegetables by developing potentially beneficial microbes, station director Yang Hung-ying (楊宏瑛) said.
Photo: CNA
The Agricultural Technology Research Institute and National Chung Hsing University collaborated with the station in the endeavor, he said.
The project cultivated fungi in the genus Trichoderma, the bacteria species Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, and the bacteria genus Streptomyces, which are capable of bolstering the survival rate and quality of common vegetables, station researcher Ku Chien-chih (郭建志) said.
Through experimentation, researchers found that the fungi and bacteria can improve the survivability of nappa cabbage, common cabbage and types of fast-growing vegetables by 20 to 50 percent, despite a scarcity or overabundance of moisture, he said.
The microbes reduced calcium deficiency-related wilting in nappa cabbages cultivated during summer by 20 percent, he said.
Microbial research is part of the ministry’s drive to improve the agricultural sector’s sustainability and resilience against the effects of global warming, Ku said.
Microbes developed by the program increased the cold-storage shelf life of cucumbers to a month from two weeks, station researcher Chen Chun-wei (陳俊位) said.
Farms that used the program-developed bacteria and fungi increased their yield and maintained stable output, Changhua Fang-yuan He-xiang Fruits and Vegetable Production Co-op manager Chan Ya-ting (詹雅婷) said.
The vegetables produced with the microbes were sweeter and crunchier than those raised without, she added.
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