The Taiwan International Orchid Show has opened with more than 1,000 award-winning orchid plants presented, featuring a 65m high projection screen for interactive display.
Held at the Ministry of Agriculture’s Floral Industry Innovation Park in Tainan and set to run through Mar. 16, the show is divided into five exhibition areas: the Blooming Resilience Pavilion, the Excellence Pavilion, the Global Connection Pavilion, the Bloom Market, and the Taiwan Floral Technology Exhibition.
The Bloom Resilience Pavilion is the soul of the show, the ministry said, where artificial intelligence (AI) technology is incorporated into floral design exhibition, with naked-eye three-dimensional (3D) displays displaying the show’s mascot “Orchidsaur” (蘭獸) — which caused a sensation in Japan last month after Japanese character designer Yoshi mentioned it in a social media post.
Photo courtesy of the Tainan City Government via CNA
Inkjet and water transfer printing techniques were used at the pavilion to represent three world masterpieces with orchids, including Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night, Claude Monet’s Garden at Giverny, and Hokusai Katsushika’ The Great Wave.
The exhibition has a 65m high screen that enables visitors to use glow sticks — available for free at 10am or 13:30pm as part of the show — to interact with a 3D display of a huge whale.
The Orchid Excellence Pavilion showcases a variety of Taiwan-bred orchids, including more than 1,000 prize winners, with tours provided to explain competitions and different breeds.
The Global Connection Pavilion provides creative and lifestyle products related to flowers, while the Bloom Market has more than 90 vendor booths offering floriculture equipment and potted orchids, with a plant quarantine station set up to offer convenient one-stop services for internationally traveling visitors.
At the opening night gala held at the park on Thursday, President William Lai (賴清德) said the government would continue to support the flower industry.
Flowers cultivated in the park should generate export value of NT$2.4 billion (US$76.8 million) annually for the next decade and create more than 3,000 jobs, he said.
Minister of Agriculture Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) at the gala said this year is the first time the ministry lead the organization of the show, with AI-powered exhibits highlighted to promote interdisciplinary cooperation and industrial exchanges.
Taiwan’s floral export sales reached NT$6.54 billion in 2024, of which more than 90 percent, or at least NT$6 billion, were generated by orchids, he said.
The ministry on Tuesday signed an agreement on behalf of Taiwan with the European Commission’s Community Plant Variety Office to extend recognition of plant variety rights to dancing-doll orchids, in addition to moth orchids.
That means Taiwan-grown dancing-doll orchids and moth orchids with a plant variety certificate granted by the ministry can get variety rights protection from the EU when they are exported to local markets, without undergoing the costly, time-consuming certification with EU authorities.
Additional reporting by CNA
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