New vegetable bean variety Taichung No. 6: dwarf, high-yielding, with great export potential to Japan
The main production area for edamame is in the Gaoping region, but edamame cannot be produced in winter, and growers hope to fill this gap with vegetable beans. On the 25th, the Taichung District Agricultural Research and Extension Station unveiled "Taichung No. 6" dwarf vegetable bean, which can use the existing mechanized harvesting equipment and cold chain equipment for edamame. It obtained variety rights in March of this year, and its potential for export to Japan is very great. In the 2019 Green Environment Payment Program for Farmland, "dwarf vegetable bean" was newly added to the "crop items for main export" category, encouraging farmers to grow it.
Every year, roughly from October to February of the following year is the gap period for edamame. To fill this gap, growers hope to use vegetable beans. According to statistics from the Taiwan Frozen Vegetable and Fruit Industry Association, Japan imported 24,800 tons of vegetable beans last year, mainly from China and Thailand, with import volumes accounting for 55% and 30% respectively.
Taichung No. 6 has good palatability and is suitable for mechanical harvesting
The common vegetable bean is the climbing vegetable bean, which needs trellises for the vines to climb on, cannot be mechanically harvested, and cannot reach export scale. After 6 years, the Taichung Station introduced Taichung No. 6 dwarf vegetable bean, which features dark green pods, no strings, and high sweetness, as well as dwarf plants, good upright growth, suitability for mechanical harvesting, and harvest 55 to 65 days after sowing. Its yield can reach up to 1 metric ton per fen.
Chen Wei-ling, associate researcher at the Taichung Station, said that Taiwan's frozen vegetable bean exports once reached as high as 14,000 tons, with an output value of 500 million. Later, because of rising labor costs, the industry gradually moved to China and other places. In recent years, due to factors such as food safety concerns and rising manual harvesting costs, the Japanese side asked whether Taiwan could produce and supply, so the Taichung Station developed its own variety suitable for cultivation in Taiwan, Taichung No. 6.
Lin Hsueh-shih, director of the Taichung Station, said that in addition to good palatability, Taichung No. 6 developed by the Taichung Station also has characteristics such as uniform maturity and one-time harvesting, and can use the mechanized harvesting and cold chain equipment for edamame. Vegetable beans are suitable for winter planting and are expected to fill the gap in the edamame production period. In addition to being grown in the Gaoping region, they can also be grown in central Taiwan. At present, 60 hectares of dwarf vegetable beans have been planted, and the subsequent planting area is estimated to reach 400 hectares.
