Taiwan’s special characteristics
Senior agronomist Chen Shu, director of the Division of Plant Germplasm, notes that Taiwan straddles the Tropic of Cancer, placing it in both the tropical and subtropical zones. Thus not only can tropical fruit trees be grown here, but temperate-zone fruit trees are also being successfully cultivated, giving Taiwan a comprehensive range of fruit tree varieties. She says with confidence: “In the future we can become the southernmost center for the preservation of temperate-zone fruit tree germplasm.”
In Chen’s assessment, crops grown in Taiwan face the dual challenges of high temperatures and scarce water resources. When the supply of water for irrigation is unreliable, production of paddy rice, which requires large amounts of water, faces a crisis. Therefore, the goal of selective breeding is to develop crops that are resistant to drought, diseases, and pests. The NPGRC collects Taiwan’s upland dry rices and wild paddy rices, which have poor palatability, meaning that farmers are unlikely to continue growing them, but which are native varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases and can survive both drought and flood conditions. “They have many valuable characteristics, and through repeated crossbreeding and selection there is a chance that we can produce new germplasm that is adaptable to the environments of the future.”
Currently the NPGRC is successfully preserving over 10,000 Taiwanese varieties of paddy rice, including the world’s southernmost Japonica rices, flax (a crop that has been abandoned by Taiwanese farmers), and more than 100 varieties of millet (an essential element in the culture of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples).
Paddy rice germplasm is also provided to other countries for cultivation; for example, the genetic material for many varieties of paddy rice grown in India has come from Taiwan. Taiwan has also sent paddy rice germplasm to the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines for shuttle breeding.
The NPGRC building, a two-story-high marble-faced structure, holds germplasm for more than 100,000 varieties of grains, vegetables and other crops in short, medium, and long-term storage.
The powerful earthquake that struck Taiwan on September 21, 1999 did great damage in Wufeng District, but Chen Shu says that only a single storage rack in the genebank was bent out of shape, and “not a single seed was lost.”
The NPGRC has successfully cultivated temperate-zone fruit trees that require fewer hours of chilling to trigger their winter dormancy. If global warming continues, the germplasm from these varieties can be supplied to countries at high latitudes for cultivation. (photo by Kent Chuang)