SW China's Yunnan cultivates thriving flower industry through innovation and modernization

The Dounan Flower Market in Chenggong district, Kunming, capital of southwest China's Yunnan Province sells over 1,600 varieties of fresh flowers under 117 categories every day. Nearly 70 percent of cut flowers sold in the country come from Dounan.

By the end of 2024, the area dedicated to flower cultivation in Yunnan reached around 1.95 million mu (130,000 hectares), with 350,000 mu specifically for cut flowers. The province produced 20.6 billion stems of cut flowers in 2024, making it the world's largest producer of cut flowers.

Thanks to its unparalleled climatic conditions and diverse floral germplasm resources, Yunnan produces flowers all-year-round. The province is now focusing on solving the "bottleneck" problems in the flower seed industry.

At the green and efficient flower planting base of the international flower technology innovation center in Kunming, researcher Cai Yanfei from the Flower Research Institute of the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences was checking on the growth of new Chinese rose varieties.

People visit Dounan Flower Market during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holiday in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan Province, Oct. 5, 2023. (Xinhua/Chen Xinbo)

Developing new Chinese rose varieties that are competitive in the global flower market is the main goal of Cai's team.

With support from the provincial science and technology department and agriculture and rural affairs department, the institute has partnered with Chenggong district to build a public flower breeding platform in Dounan, aiming to continuously increase the market share of Yunnan's flower varieties with independent intellectual property rights.

The base has preserved over 1,000 Chinese rose germplasm resources collected both at home and abroad, including some new varieties featuring Chinese aesthetics cultivated by Cai's team.

In April 2024, the institute launched 76 independently cultivated Chinese rose varieties, marking its first large-scale introduction of domestically bred Chinese roses.

"This year, we will achieve an improvement in both quantity and quality of varieties compared to last year. We've already planted over 10,000 hybrid offspring," said Cai.

Cai added that the institute has conducted joint breeding with enterprises. Currently, more than 400 superior strains have been selected, with over 40 chosen by companies for commercialization. These selected strains have been submitted for new variety registration and are about to enter the market.

Today, about one-third of the world's ornamental flower germplasm resources come from Yunnan. By the end of 2024, the province had applied for over 1,100 new varieties, ranking first in China regarding innovation in flower varieties.

Technology is also being implemented to improve the growing process for flowers, with Yuntianhua Huajiangpu Technology Co., Ltd.'s smart greenhouse in Jinning district of Kunming serving as a demonstration garden for modern floriculture.

"Smart greenhouses are equipped with high-tech facilities including automatic environmental control systems, greenhouse window systems, heating control systems, shade and insulation systems, as well as big data analysis and intelligent algorithms. These can precisely sense the environment, simulate the needs of roses at different growth stages, and regulate light, temperature, and humidity, thus allowing flowers to grow year-round," said Li Xin, assistant to production head of the company.

There are plenty of other high technologies inside the greenhouses, including adjustable roof panels that can control lighting intensity, films that can form diffused light, decay-resistant coconut husks for soilless cultivation, and an integrated water-fertilizer system that can blend water-fertilizer mixtures in different ratios. The fluids are applied directly to the roots of the flowers using drip irrigation tubes.

Li said the yield of flowers per mu is 40,000 to 60,000 stems under traditional cultivation methods, while the intelligent planting mode has increased the figures to 120,000 to 150,000 stems.

Modernization has also changed the buying and selling process for flowers.

At the auction hall of the Kunming International Flora Auction Trading Center (KIFA), nearly 1,000 seats were occupied. On a huge electronic screen in the front of the hall, auction information of flowers was displayed.

The KIFA is the largest flower auction market in Asia. The KIFA flower trading index is considered an indicator of prices of cut flowers across China, and has a direct impact on the pricing trend of the national flower market. On average, a deal is made every four seconds at the KIFA.

The Dounan Flower Market mainly provides three forms of trading: face-to-face transactions, auctions, and e-commerce. In recent years, digital sales channels for Yunnan flowers have been expanded.

Huaeb is an e-commerce platform that connects flower growers with merchants, said Zhao Yongneng, founder and general manager of Kunming Huaeb Technology Co., Ltd. Currently, over 4,000 flower-growing households and cooperatives are registered on the platform. It provided 873 million stems of fresh flowers for consumers in 2024.

In addition, the Dounan Flower Market has become a hotspot for tourists. During this year's eight-day Spring Festival holiday, the market attracted 350,000 tourist visits by integrating fresh flowers with cultural tourism, up 27 percent year on year.

In recent years, Yunnan has continuously extended the flower industry chain, promoting high-quality development of the sector. Kunming's Jinning district has become an important production area for cut flowers in China, while Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the province has formed large-scale flower cultivation zones.

According to the Kunming Customs, in 2024, the export value of cut flowers from Yunnan reached 760 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.2 percent, ranking first nationwide in terms of cut flower export value for six consecutive years.