Wild-caught Litsea cubeba harvesting involves widespread tree-cutting chaos; is artificial seedling cultivation feasible?

The fruit of Litsea cubeba (mountain pepper), with its blended special aroma of ginger, lemon and lemongrass, is a traditional food ingredient of indigenous peoples. In recent years it has become a trend, and even Michelin restaurants use it in dishes, showing great market potential. However, Litsea cubeba relies on wild harvesting; one must go up into the mountains to search for it, break off branches, and then peel the Litsea cubeba fruits one by one from the branches, so the price is not low.

Every year from June to August is the production season for Litsea cubeba, and farmers drive their pickup trucks around the mountains looking for Litsea cubeba. To avoid others getting there first, many people cut down Litsea cubeba before the fruit is ripe, "first come, first served." This not only leaves the fruit with insufficient flavor, but also affects the health of the plant. A Litsea cubeba tree must be left with a certain number of fruits and branches to benefit its growth the following year. Some people even cut down the main trunk directly for convenience, causing the Litsea cubeba tree to die, which has made wild Litsea cubeba decrease year by year.

Feng Yongfu, director of the Wufeng Work Station of the Taoyuan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, has actively developed artificial seedlings for Litsea cubeba, but has faced difficulties in technology transfer. Feng Yongfu sighed: "For many people, Litsea cubeba can be collected in the wild. This is a business with no capital costs, so there is no need to spend money specifically to cultivate Litsea cubeba." He revealed that although the agricultural research and extension station has five technology transfer cases, only Hualien Ruisui has actual commercial cultivation and sales.

Taipei City Liugong Agricultural Production and Marketing Foundation: Litsea cubeba is still some distance from commercial cultivation

Wang Mingyao, deputy technician of the Taipei City Liugong Agricultural Production and Marketing Foundation, admitted frankly, "Domesticating wild plants into economic crops takes time, and because each region's environment is different, there are still technical issues to overcome for large-scale cultivation of Litsea cubeba." Even though Wulai has already received technology transfer from the Taoyuan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station and appears to have taken a successful first step, Wang believes that large-scale cultivation involves many aspects, and the entire SOP still needs to be established slowly.

"Farmers still are not doing quantitative production now. Seedling cultivation sometimes fails, or the success rate is less than half, and from sowing to the end, less than 50% can be grown into seedlings." Wang pointed out that if the seed treatment procedure is not handled carefully, it will affect the later seedling results. "If transplanting seedlings bred by the improvement station, there is no problem, but farmers taking seeds themselves to grow seedlings still need to overcome difficulties."

Wang said that harvesting generally cuts off the entire branch, "cut once each time you pick, so of course there is less and less Litsea cubeba," so he hopes to move toward an economic cultivation model. But most farmers have not realized the future predicament of Litsea cubeba disappearing, "mainly because the market still does not have very large demand." However, Litsea cubeba has been proven to have multiple medical benefits, and its market potential is great, so demand will follow. "Before products are developed in large quantities, preparations should be made in advance to move toward an economic crop." (Series end)

Series reading:

Three articles in the Litsea cubeba Charm and Crisis series

The Charm and Crisis of Litsea cubeba 02" How to tell true and false Litsea cubeba apart? Black pepper is mixed in as Litsea cubeba, and quality and prices are chaotic