Flower farmer Lin Chiang-kai (林將凱), the owner of a major moth orchid greenhouse, said he aspires to raise the international profile of Taiwanese floriculture at next year’s Taichung World Flora Exposition.
Although he had no formal agricultural training, Lin said his orchid-growing hobby blossomed into a side job that eventually overtook his career as a car salesman.
Retiring from selling cars, Lin built a 1 hectare flower greenhouse with nearly 100,000 plants in Taichung’s Houli District (后里) to pursue flower farming, which he dreamed of as a boy, he said.
Photo courtesy of Taichung Agriculture Bureau
The greenhouse incorporates orchid-growing technologies and techniques imported from the Netherlands, and has played a major role in the creation of at least 60 to 70 unique moth orchid breeds, Lin said.
He chose to rent land for his greenhouse in Houli, because its climate is ideal for floriculture, Lin said, adding that a winter temperature of 18°C is ideal for inducing flowering in plants.
The greenhouse is comanaged by his wife, he said.
The techniques and technologies that he imported from the Netherlands are crucial for maintaining the quality of his orchids, he added.
As orchid bulbs need to grow in hot climes, he contracts floriculturists in southern Taiwan to mature the plants before shipping them to his greenhouse in Houli, where they are farmed until ready to flower, Lin said.
“Each flowering moth orchid plant takes two years of farming before it can be delivered to a customer. This is a significant investment in labor, time and capital on the part of flower farmers that I can scarcely describe,” Lin said.
He has planted almost every species in the orchid family, from dancing ladies and Venus slippers to moth orchids, Lin said, but added that he has lately focused on large-scale farming of moth orchids, because they are a perennial favorite with consumers.
Taiwan used to be a leading global grower of moth orchids and the Taichung flower expo is a good venue to put the international spotlight back on the nation, he said, adding that the expo would be good for tourism in Houli.
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