A National Chung Hsing University research team on Monday said it has developed a new breed of pink poinsettia, which won the award for best new breed in this year’s poinsettia competition held by the Taiwan Potted Plants Association.
The research team, led by department of horticulture assistant professor Chen Yan-ming (陳彥銘), said it developed the breed over seven years.
The team said it chose the poinsettia because of its high value on the global market.
Photo: Su Meng-chuan, Taipei Times
Europe — which produces two-thirds of all poinsettias worldwide — is the biggest market for the flowering plant, it said, adding that the US is also a major market.
“In Taiwan, we could potentially produce up to 1.3 million pots of the flower annually — for a market value of about NT$200 million [US$7.01 million],” it said.
The majority of poinsettias grown and sold in Taiwan are of imported varieties, and growers must pay high royalty fees, Chen said.
“This means the development of the industry is controlled by people in other countries, while the imported varieties might not even be suitable for local growing conditions,” he said, adding that the situation spurred him and his team to develop a local variety.
Chen said he established a plant-breeding research center at the university in Taichung in 2013 and has since been researching poinsettias.
The team developed its first local variety of poinsettia, called nushen (女神), last year after experimenting with a variety of breeding techniques, including mutation breeding and cross-breed pollination, he said, adding that the team this year improved its techniques to develop the latest variety, called aishen (愛神).
A pink variety of poinsettia was first grown in Europe in 2000, but Taiwanese growers have not had success growing it locally, he said.
With aishen, the team hopes to give local growers a pink variety of poinsettia that could grow in Taiwan’s climate, he said, adding that the new variety is also resistant to invasive insects and plant diseases.
“The pink hue of the bracts makes it ideal for placing indoors. It is not as affected by indoor lighting as the red poinsettia and keeps its color longer,” he said.
The aishen variety on Nov. 18 won the best new breed award at the poinsettia competition, as well as the top prize in the 3-inch and 5-inch non-red poinsettia categories.
Chen said he has since planted aishen plants in all of the country’s major poinsettia growing locations.
He is registering a trademark for aishen, and hopes to bring it to the market next year, he said.
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