Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan, back row, center, and other guests promote peaches from Lalashan, which are known for being sweet and juicy, at a news conference in Taoyuan yesterday. The peaches are to be available online, as well as at agriculatural exhibitions and sales activities that the city government is planning to hold in front of its headquarters and department stores in the coming weeks, the Taoyuan Agriculture Bureau said yesterday.
DNA tests are expected to show that the giant trees on Lalashan (拉拉山) might not be as old as originally thought.
Lalashan’s “giant tree area,” which is overseen by the Forestry Bureau’s Hsinchu Forest District Office, is to be transformed into a National Forest Recreation Area by the end of the year.
The giant trees, mostly Taiwan cypress and Taiwan red cypress, grow at an altitude of 1,500m to 2,130m.
The Taiwan red cypress is prone to infection by a canker-causing fungi, office Deputy Director Liu Chung-hsien (劉忠憲) said, adding that infected trees fall once the pitted trunks can no longer hold up
The Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) promotion of preventive biotechnology in agriculture over the past few years has not only helped the environment, but also improved harvest yield and quality, and enabled farmers to save on expenses, the agency said.
Overuse of fertilizer has led to excessive concentrations of phosphorous, nitrogen and potassium in the soil, made nutrients unable to be absorbed by crops and is the main source of nutrient pollution in waterways, the EPA said.
The agency began developing biocoal and biofertilizers in 2019 in collaboration with National Taiwan University, and found that they could help farmers reduce fertilizer use by
2021/01/09 17:35 Snow on Lalashan. (photo courtesy of Gaoyuan Farm) Snow on Lalashan. (photo courtesy of Gaoyuan Farm) TAIPEI (Taiwan News) Lalashan Forest Reserve was covered with layers of snow on Saturday morning (Jan. 9), attracting crowds of Taiwanese to take in the rare spectacle and pose for photos. On Friday (Jan. 8), several mountains across Taiwan welcomed their first snowfall of the winter amid a cold wave that sent temperatures plummeting to 6 to 8 degrees Celsius in some parts of the country . Meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) had predicted the cold spell would result in snowfall at altitudes of over 2,000 meters in northern Taiwan, including on Yangmingshan, Taipingshan, Hehuanshan, Lalashan, Jianshishan, and Xueshan. He was right.