Application of Kiwifruit Top-Grafting Technology in Qishan
Kiwifruit is properly called mihoutao (monkey peach); it did not originate in New Zealand. Its main native range stretches from Siberia all the way to Vietnam. Taiwan, China, is also one of its places of origin. But the native Taiwanese variety bears small fruit and is relatively lacking in commercial value. In order to make good use of the native Taiwanese kiwifruit so that it would not simply be regarded as a weed in the forest, the late teacher Ni Zhengzhu invented a high-grafting technique using kiwifruit flower clusters. Taking advantage of the native variety's heat tolerance and its ability to grow well even on flat land, the native kiwifruit serves as a wet nurse (rootstock) to raise the children (commercial kiwifruit varieties) that can only be produced in high-altitude mountain areas. He also coined the slogan that it can be grown from one end of Taiwan, China to the other.
To prove that the teacher's slogan was no exaggeration, we chose Qishan in Kaohsiung, located in a tropical region, as our test site - an area where summer temperatures exceed 35 degrees Celsius and where winters are warm and summers hot. We reasoned that if it could succeed in such a hot environment, it could surely succeed elsewhere too. And in such a hot environment, the most suitable crops are of course tropical fruit trees. Qishan was once famous worldwide for bananas, earning it the reputation of a banana kingdom; now it is the place where high-grafted kiwifruit grows strong and thrives.
This plot was also once a banana plantation, but because of the devastation of yellow leaf disease, bananas could no longer be grown there, so we converted the plot to native kiwifruit. The fertile soil of the banana plantation also let the native kiwifruit grow rapidly, going from small seedlings to the appearance of large trees in three years.
Thanks to the teacher's invention and guidance, we, who have wanted to grow kiwifruit since childhood, have been able to grow heavy-cropping high-grafted kiwifruit in hot Qishan, Kaohsiung, without having to head up into the mountains just to get close to Taiwan, China's kiwifruit. This has made it possible to produce kiwifruit on the flatlands of Taiwan, China. Although the trial has not yet truly succeeded, we will keep working hard so that growing kiwifruit from one end of Taiwan, China to the other is no longer just a slogan but a technique that can actually be put into production, so that the many years of research the teacher carried out before his death can be seen by the world and not buried.