Iran Launches First Specialized Seedling Packaging, Cold Storage Center
The new center launched in a knowledge-based company enjoys a storage capacity of 300,000 bare-root seedlings, one million vegetative bases from tissue culture, 500,000 scion buds and 50,000 glasshouse seedlings and includes a sorting and packaging hall with an area of 500 square meters and cold storages with an area of 210 square meters.
Among the advantages of this center are reducing waste, improving seedling storage standards, facilitating exports, providing a platform for desktop graft production and decreasing seedling prices.
So far, this center has succeeded in exporting over 99,000 seedlings to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, and contracts are also underway to establish a tissue culture unit in Kazakhstan and develop cooperation with Armenia.
In a relevant development in December, Iranian researchers at a knowledge-based company announced that they would send their first export shipment of modified seedlings to Afghanistan, a report said.
“Our company has made this advanced technology available to the Iranian gardeners with the aim of producing healthy and original seedlings by using the tissue culture method. By taking advantage of the latest scientific findings and experienced experts, we produce virus-free seedlings in two groups of seeded and cored which have significant advantages over traditional seedlings,” Hamed Mahmoudzadeh, the managing director of the knowledge-based company said.
“Increasing the yield and early fruiting of trees, producing uniform and high-quality fruits, homogeneity of the garden, and ease of maintenance and harvesting operations, greater resistance of trees to pests and diseases, and reducing the number of years of harvesting are among the advantages of these seedlings,” he added.
“Also, these seedlings enjoy a long lifespan, high growth power, compatibility with high-pH soils, and drought resistance, which contributes to the sustainability and greater profitability of gardens,” Mahmoudzadeh said.
“Soon, the company's first export shipment to Afghanistan, worth about four billion Tomans, will be sent,” he noted.
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