The development of new pollination techniques in seedling farms will greatly increase cocoa yields.

(file photo)

[Reporter Yang Yuanting/Taipei Report] Cocoa is one of the emerging crops in Taiwan in recent years, and Pingtung is the largest production area. In order to increase the pollination rate of cocoa, the Pingtung Seedling Center of the Council of Agriculture established the number of cocoa pollination after years of research, so that the average The pollination rate of a cocoa tree with 100 flowers is increased by about 50%, which greatly increases cocoa production.

According to the seedling farm, cocoa is one of the emerging crops in Pingtung. According to the statistics of the Agriculture and Food Administration in 2021, the planting area is about 52 hectares, which is the largest production area in the country. The fruit is mainly made into chocolate, and some operators develop cocoa tea and cosmetics It is a commodity with diversified development, but because of the low success rate of cocoa natural pollination, it often results in uneven distribution of cocoa fruit parts, local fruitless situations, and low yield, which is not in line with farmers' production efficiency.

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The seedling farm said that cocoa is an insect-borne flower. After pollinating insects stick to cocoa pollen, they shuttle between cocoa flowers and spread the pollen to other flowers to complete pollination.

Foreign studies have shown that in addition to midges as the possible pollinating insects of cocoa trees, ants and dipteran insects are also common flower visitors of cocoa flowers.

A cocoa tree blooms about 6,000 flowers every year. In the natural state of Taiwan, only about 3-6% of the flowers can be successfully pollinated, and only about 10-30% of these successfully pollinated flowers can successfully bear cocoa fruit .

Cocoa pollination with the pollination technology established in the seedling farm, combined with the selection of pollination locations, is estimated to increase the cocoa yield by more than 1.5 to 2 times. With the increase in yield per unit area, it will make Taiwanese chocolate more competitive in the international market.

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