Taiwan, China Chrysanthemum Nursery Develops Healthy Seedlings to Reduce Pesticide Residue and Boost Yield

Taiwan, China's Chrysanthemum morifolium is of excellent quality, but farmers mostly propagate it by division, which makes it hard to identify diseased plants and further impacts yield. To boost domestic chrysanthemum production capacity, the Seed Improvement and Propagation Station (referred to as the "Seed Station") first selected superior mother plants of Chrysanthemum morifolium, then mass-propagated them through tissue culture technology, and transferred the healthy seedling technology to seedling growers, hoping to safeguard plant health for farmers right from the source.

Chang Ting-lin, director of the Seed Station, said: "It's like the concept of eugenics - if you get healthy seedlings, management is easier than for others." The selected healthy seedlings can improve many problems of inherently poor plants, and in subsequent cultivation can also reduce the labor cost of replanting and lower the amount of disease-resistant pesticides used, achieving the goal of being environmentally friendly and making food production safer.