Wild maqaw is getting scarce the more it is cut; experts suggest shifting to artificial seedling cultivation

The fruit of maqaw (Litsea cubeba), which blends the distinctive aromas of ginger, lemon and lemongrass, is a traditional food ingredient of indigenous peoples and has become a trend in recent years, even used in dishes by Michelin restaurants, showing strong market potential. However, maqaw relies on wild harvesting, requiring trips up the mountains to search, break off branches, and then peel the maqaw berries off the branches one by one, so the price is not cheap.

June to August each year is the maqaw production season, when farmers drive their pickup trucks around the mountains looking for maqaw. To avoid others getting there first, many cut down maqaw before the fruit is ripe, "grab first, win first", which not only leaves the fruit lacking in flavor but also affects the health of the plant. A maqaw tree must retain a certain number of fruits and branches to grow well the following year. Some people even cut down the main trunk for convenience, causing the maqaw tree to die, which has made wild maqaw decline year by year.

Feng Yongfu, director of the Wufeng Station of the Taoyuan District Agricultural Research and Extension Station, has been actively developing artificial maqaw seedlings, but faces difficulties in technology transfer. Feng Yongfu sighed: "For many people, maqaw can be collected in the wild, this is a business with no capital outlay, so there is simply no need to spend money specifically to cultivate maqaw." He revealed that although the station has five technology transfer cases, only Hualien Ruisui has actual commercial cultivation and sales.

Taipei City Liugong Agricultural Production and Marketing Foundation: maqaw 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 cash crops takes time, and since each region's environment is different, there are still technical issues to overcome for large-scale maqaw planting." Even though Wulai has already received technology transfer from the Taoyuan 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 gradually.

"Farmers still are not doing quantified production now; seedling raising 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 process is not handled carefully, it will affect the later results of seedling formation. "If transplanting seedlings bred by the extension station, there is no problem, but farmers taking seeds themselves to raise seedlings still need to overcome difficulties."

Wang said that collection generally involves cutting off the entire branch, "cut once each time you pick, so of course there is less and less maqaw," so he hopes to move toward an economic cultivation model with careful care during harvesting. But most farmers have not realized the future predicament of maqaw disappearing, "mainly because the market does not yet have very large demand." However, maqaw has been proven to have multiple medical effects and has great market potential, so demand will follow, "before products are developed on a large scale, preparations should be made in advance to move toward a cash crop." (Series end)

Series reading:

The charm and crisis of maqaw three-part series

The charm and crisis of maqaw 02"How to tell real and fake maqaw apart? Black pepper mixed in as maqaw, quality and prices in chaos