How the flower and tree industry can seize opportunities and meet challenges
In recent years, China's flower and nursery stock industry has entered a period of transformation and adjustment. Under new development opportunities, how the flower and tree industry should respond to challenges requires clear understanding from industry professionals. At the Ecological Landscape Construction and Nursery Stock Industry Summit recently held in Beijing, Zhang Qixiang, vice president of Beijing Forestry University and director of the Ornamental Horticulture Professional Committee of the Chinese Horticultural Society, gave attendees an in-depth analysis of the development status of China's flower and nursery stock industry, the new opportunities it faces, the requirements that the new situation places on flower and nursery stock levels, and how the industry can innovate and develop, providing reference suggestions for industry professionals.
Zhang Qixiang introduced that since the beginning of this century, China's flower and nursery stock industry has entered a period of rapid development. In 2015, the production area reached about 1.3 million hectares. Starting in 2011, the industry entered a period of adjustment, transformation and innovative development. During the transformation period, the flower and tree industry shows characteristics such as technological renewal, product upgrading, quality improvement and efficiency enhancement, and integration and restructuring. The adjustment trend is manifested as rises and falls, slower development, obvious adjustment and overall stability. The flower and nursery stock production area of 1.3 million hectares is currently the largest in the world.
Although it has developed rapidly, the problems exposed in the development process of the flower and tree industry are very serious, and solving these problems is a huge challenge for industrial transformation.
“Total volume is excessive, and structural contradictions are prominent; homogenization is serious, with low-level repetition; more than 40 kinds of trees account for more than 60% of the nursery stock area; local characteristic varieties are lacking; and the quality level of most nursery stock is not high.” Zhang Qixiang listed the various problems of China's flower and tree industry one by one.
Since the development of the flower and tree industry to today, only 4-6 kinds of trees have become the backbone tree species of hundreds of cities in China's Yangtze River basin, Yellow River basin, South China and Southwest regions, and cities have gradually lost their plant landscape characteristics. Among more than 120 commonly used flower border materials, more than 90% are introduced from abroad. Five common herbaceous flowers account for nearly 25% of China's total annual and biennial herbaceous flower use, and 90% of the main herbaceous flower species come from abroad.
In the development process, industrial innovation is obviously insufficient. Zhang Qixiang introduced that the total volume of new varieties and new flowers is small, breakthrough varieties are lacking, key technologies for difficult-to-propagate species still have not achieved major breakthroughs, technology support for the industry is insufficient, and flower enterprises with varietalization, improved-seed production, standardization and modernization account for less than 0.4%.
Zhang Qixiang reminded industry professionals that landscape greening construction during the transformation period has placed higher requirements on the flower and tree industry. Landscape greening once had a stage of luxurious construction and excessive design, but in recent years it has entered the stage of building resource-saving landscape gardens, therefore requiring higher nursery stock quality. Urban ecological environment construction and improvement have received great attention, and the demand for diverse ecological nursery stock has become more urgent. From the urban-rural dual structure to urban-rural integration, rural landscape construction and ecological construction are accelerating, and requirements for nursery stock quality are increasing. Personalized consumption is developing rapidly, public consumption capacity is improving, and the demand for flowers and nursery stock to serve families and individuals is strengthening. Various regions have urgent demand for native plants and highly adaptable, drought-resistant, water-saving and salt-alkali-tolerant plants. The landscape greening industry has a large demand for substrate-cultivated seedlings and higher requirements for large container seedlings, full-crown seedlings and standardized large seedlings. Diversification, specialization and high quality; standardization, substrate cultivation and modern production technology; improved-seed varieties and varietalized improved-seed production - these have become the development direction of flower and nursery stock production during the transformation period.
In the new era, online auctions, internet-based sales models and others are all emerging. For flower and nursery stock producers and operators, they must also accept new sales and operation models.
So, under the new situation, how should China's flower and nursery stock industry innovate and develop?
“Flower and nursery stock enterprises must first actively seek development directions and goals in the country's major development strategies, and grasp opportunities.” Zhang Qixiang believes.
The national plan for the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region involves two municipalities directly under the central government and 11 prefecture-level cities, and ecological environmental protection is one of the important principles. The Yangtze River Economic Belt covers 11 provinces (municipalities), including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou. The “Belt and Road” includes the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and mainly involves 18 provinces (regions) in China.
For the flower and tree industry, these three major strategies mean major opportunities: ecological environment and greening construction across more than 2 million square kilometers; landscape upgrading in more than 200 cities; multi-route, multi-belt and multi-point ecological construction; and improvement of human settlement environment quality in different regions. Therefore, there will be huge demand for drought-tolerant and salt-alkali-tolerant trees and flowers in northern regions, trees and flowers resistant to urban pollution, water-wet and humid-heat-tolerant trees and flowers in southern regions, native plants, high-quality landscape flowers, and diverse flowers, trees and products.
“China's flower and nursery stock industry must take the path of characteristic development.” Zhang Qixiang said. China has more than 7,000 species of native ornamental plants, with a high proportion of endemic elements in its flora. About 50%-60% of native plants are endemic to China and adjacent areas, including about 256 endemic genera and about 15,000-18,000 endemic species. With so many plant resources, strengthening research and development of characteristic flowers is very necessary. The flower and nursery stock industry should pay attention to and increase efforts in developing new flower and nursery stock types, develop newly discovered species or genera, and develop species that are in a wild state and have not yet been applied.
Zhang Qixiang believes that the flower and nursery stock industry should innovate in all aspects, including theory, technology, varieties, products, brands and services.
For scientific research institutes, it is necessary to strengthen basic research on flowers, with emphasis on analyzing the molecular mechanisms by which important ornamental traits are formed; and strengthen research on flower ecology and physiology to find breakthroughs for the research and development of new flowers.
For flower and nursery stock enterprises, it is necessary to strengthen the breeding of new varieties with independent intellectual property rights, and research and develop container seedling production technology and standardized products. In response to the serious shortage of urban water resources and the tight supply of water for ecological greening, people from all sides of the industry can focus on researching and developing drought-tolerant and salt-alkali-tolerant flowers, and screening and directionally breeding drought-tolerant ornamental plants; and collecting and screening highly efficient ecological restoration plants. In addition, flower and nursery stock enterprises can also pay more attention to the demand for flowers and nursery stock in vertical greening.
Flower and nursery stock enterprises can adjust in terms of flower diversity and product diversification, developing outdoor perennial flowers and nursery stock such as excellent flowering groundcovers, long-flowering flowers, and woody fruit-ornamental plants; ornamental conifers, fragrant flowers and others; indoor low-light flowers; health-care flowers; potted combinations; indoor decorative flowers; and they can also develop flower tourism.
In addition, the innovative development of flowers and nursery stock also requires strengthening research on core technologies and common technologies, strengthening research and construction of industrial guarantee systems, and carrying out joint collaborative innovation in government, industry, academia, research and application.