Islamic Azad University’s Innovation Center Grows Different Rare Herbal, Ornamental Plants

"In line with interaction of the Innovation Center with technology development service institutions, we have seen a 100% increase in signing specialized memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with governmental and non-governmental organizations and institutions,” Mohsen Tajari, the head of the Innovation Center, told ANA.

“Enjoying a 3,000-square-meter space for the exhibition, the supply and sale of greenhouse products like ornamental flowers, seasonal flowers, cactus, all types of soil in suitable packaging, all kinds of pots, poisons, fertilizers and all kinds of bulbs and seeds, etc. are instances of the Center’s growth and progress,” he added.

“One of the most important activities of the Center’s greenhouse in the field of marketing is to increase diversity in the production of ornamental flowers and production of the first seedlings of ornamental trees like petunia, jasmine, fennel and boxwood,” Tajari noted.

In a relevant development, a knowledge-based company in Iran succeeded in production of fresh turmeric and ornamental plants, seedlings and seeds which have no viruses and do not need any poison spraying.

“The plants that we provide to farms are plant phytogens, which means that they are healthy and free from any contamination and germs,” Ali Oqalayee, the managing director of the knowledge-based Avij Kesht Baft Arvin company, told ANA at the time.

Noting that ornamental plants were smuggled illegally to Iran in the past and they needed pesticide spraying, he said, “We have produced plants that do not require any type of spraying which is an important advantage.”

“Fortunately, with this method, we were able to indigenize ornamental plants like orchids and provided them to greenhouses with the same quality as foreign specimens,” Oqalayee said.

"Also, the fresh turmeric plant was not produced in Iran before and we are the first company which worked on the turmeric plant commercially and we were able to harvest fresh turmeric,” he underlined.

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