Floral sector blossoms as demand sprouts

The floral sector in Shandong province, a major agricultural base in China, has seen fast development in recent years thanks to efforts made in developing technologies to cultivate new varieties of seedlings that are able to produce flowers in rich colors and shapes, catering to consumers' various demands.

In Huanglou township of Qingzhou, a county-level city of Weifang, flower cultivation workshops line the streets. Among these, a butterfly orchid base stands out for its stunning display of plants of the same name.

In one of the base's greenhouses, butterfly orchids of different colors such as yellow, white, red and pink are in full bloom, emitting a faint fragrance.

Some of its workers were packaging single orchids into plastic containers heading for supermarkets. Some were arranging butterfly orchids of different colors into a wooden frame that would be added to a landscape.

Over the past 20 years, Shandong Lyusheng Butterfly Orchid Science and Technology Co Ltd, which owns the base, has independently developed more than 200 new varieties of butterfly orchids and can produce over 2 million seedlings every year.

These varieties cater to consumers' differing tastes, which has expanded the market for the company.

"Our flowers are sold in many provinces," said Wang Minzhi, chairman of the company.

"Instead of buying butterfly orchids from Shanghai, we now sell a lot of flowers to Shanghai," he added.

Qingzhou, which is home to 960,000 people, has 315 large and medium-sized flower producers like Lyusheng, said Zheng Dongpeng, deputy director of the Qingzhou flower industry development service center.

The county boasts more than 3,000 flower varieties, and the volume of trade generated from the floral-related sector reached 12.6 billion yuan ($1.76 billion) in 2022, according to statistics provided by the center.

The county also sees booming development in succulents. Succulent seedlings and plants account for 80 percent and 60 percent of the national market, respectively, said the center.

In Heze, a city known for its peonies, 100 million stems of fresh peonies have been sold this year, making the city the biggest fresh peony production base in China, according to Heze's peony Industry Development Service Center.

R&D equals blooming biz

"There are limited areas to grow flowers, so we are developing technologies to cultivate new varieties to enter more markets and increase the added value of flowers," said Zheng.

During the past few years, the Qingzhou government has been supporting companies in seedling research and development.

The support has seen the annual production of flower seedlings in the city exceed 70 million.

As one of the earliest companies to engage in the business of butterfly orchids in Qingzhou, Lyusheng has developed a seedling bank that has a total of over 300 butterfly orchid varieties, among which more than 200 are new varieties the company developed itself.

But 27 years ago, the company only traded in bloomed butterfly orchids.

These butterfly orchids that cater to people's different tastes are bringing more customers to the company, generating an average annual sales growth of 20 percent over the past three years.

"Technology determines whether an enterprise can develop better," said Wang, the company's chairman.

In 1996, Wang began to buy butterfly orchids from southern cities and sold the flowers in Qingzhou. Two years later, Wang realized that seedlings are much cheaper than bloomed flowers. In 1998, Wang bought thousands of seedlings and attempted to cultivate them into blooming flowers.

"At that time, I couldn't find anyone in Qingzhou to learn how to grow a butterfly orchid because few people in the county grew butterfly orchids, a kind of flower typically grown in South China," said Wang.

The first batch of seedlings Wang bought died because they weren't used to the soil and climate in Qingzhou.

"I spent several years trying more than 10 types of soil and finally found the proper soil for butterfly orchids," said Wang.

To master the climate needed for orchid growth, Wang went into the greenhouse every two hours to test the temperature and recorded it in his notebooks.

After several years, Wang mastered the growth habits of butterfly orchids, such as the number of days each growing stage takes and the temperature of each stage.

"Taiwan's technology for raising butterfly orchids is the best. Now our company's technology is at the same level as Taiwan's," said Wang.

Companies in Qingzhou have built long-term cooperation with universities and research organizations including Beijing Forestry University and South China Agricultural University, to enhance research and development abilities.

Expanding markets

At a succulent plant base run by Liu Qiang, three young women promoted succulent plants on a live-streaming platform in early June. Surrounding them were potted succulents of different colors and shapes lined up one by one.

In less than one minute, more than 30 succulent plants were sold.

Liu's base sells around 4 million succulents each year, among which 30 to 40 percent are sold through e-commerce platforms.

Qingzhou has more than 500 enterprises and farmers running succulent businesses, producing over 1 billion succulents every year, making the county the biggest succulent-growing base in China, according to statistics from the county government.

The abundant succulents have attracted a lot of young people to sell the plants via online platforms. To provide people a place to do so, the county has built a livestreaming and e-commerce industrial park.

The annual turnover of flowers via e-commerce has reached 3.6 billion yuan.

A warehouse that covers 6,000 square meters has been built to store flowers specifically for e-commerce orders.

In the warehouse, butterfly orchids, succulents, lilies and other fresh flowers are placed in separate regions. Workers skillfully sort and package the flowers.

Enterprises can focus on selling their flowers and the warehouse is in charge of following procedures including packaging and delivery, said Dong Ming, director of the park.

Overseas opportunities

Liu, who studied in Ireland for four years before returning to Qingzhou to run the succulent plant business, said his products have been sold to several countries and regions including Southeast Asia, the United States and Japan.

He is searching for an appropriate place in Europe to build a production and trade base for succulents.

Zheng, deputy director of Qingzhou's flower industry development service center, said the county is building a greenhouse in Russia to raise flowers. The county will also build a greenhouse in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to tap the markets in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative.

In Heze, the peony-growing base, peony businesses sent fresh peonies to Los Angeles, California, in April by air.

"The local government has organized relevant departments such as Customs and airline operators to open green channels for the fresh peony business, which has shortened the transportation time from Heze to Los Angeles to 48 hours from five days," said Zhao Xiangkun, a peony business owner in Heze, adding this has not only saved costs but also ensured the freshness of cut flowers.

Zhao said this year's exports of fresh peonies to Los Angeles is a trial for expanding to overseas markets, but there is a long way to go before achieving large-scale exports.