Compendium of Chinese Vegetable Varieties

Author: Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-01-01
Features: China is an ancient civilization with thousands of years of history. It has a vast territory and complex climate types. In the diverse ecological environments formed by these factors, long-term natural and artificial selection have resulted in an extremely rich genetic resource of crops, making it one of the world's important centers of origin for cultivated plants. Among them, 88 species of vegetables (including edible fungi) originated in China. China is also one of the earliest countries to introduce foreign vegetables, with a history of over 2,000 years. Whether originating in China or introduced from other regions, these vegetables have evolved into various varieties, types, and cultivars through long-term cultivation and selection. Today, China's cultivated vegetables encompass 45 families and 158 species (or varieties). Since the 1950s, the country has organized scientists to conduct multiple surveys, collections, and compilations of local vegetable varieties nationwide (excluding Taiwan Province). In the 1980s, surveys, collections, and research on vegetable germplasm resources were included as special topics in the "Seventh Five-Year Plan" and "Eighth Five-Year Plan" national key scientific and technological projects. By 1995, 28,457 vegetable varieties had been compiled, cataloged, and stored. Two volumes of the Catalog of Vegetable Varieties in China were published successively, and around the same time, many provinces (municipalities, and autonomous regions) across the country also published their own vegetable variety catalogs, laying a solid foundation for the compilation of this book. This book classifies registered varieties into 12 categories according to the agricultural biological classification system, published in two volumes, including root vegetables, solanaceous vegetables, cabbage family vegetables, legumes, aquatic vegetables, etc., totaling 4,183 varieties.