Located in Mengzhou City, Henan Province, Mengzhou Long-term Experimental Base of Non-timber Forest R&D Center of Chinese Academy of Forestry (Paulownia R&D Center of State Forestry and Grassland Administration) covers a total area of about 1200 mu. The base focuses on collection, preservation, evaluation, introduction and demonstration of germplasm resources of non-timber forest tree species and Paulownia spp., and the implementation of variety breeding and high-efficiency silvicultral experiments.
The base is well-equipped with a 1200 m2 laboratory, a 240 m3 intelligent cold storage, a 1600 m2 management and production room, a 615 m2 intelligent greenhouse, and a 1920 m2 ordinary greenhouse for seedling propogations. It is also equipped with roads, electric power supplies, irrigation systems, security walls and a full coverage monitoring system.
At present, it possesses 300 mu of gene bank, 50 mu of core genebank, 480 mu of regional test plantations, 220 mu of high-efficiency silvicultural demonstration plantations, and 100 mu of nursery for improved variety breeding. The base preserves more than 2500 germplasm resource copies of non-timber tree species and Paulownia spp., including more than 500 copies of Eucommia, 729 of apricots for kernel use, 200 of diospyros, 580 of almonds (almonds), 100 of paulownia, 394 of apricot plums, papaya and other small assorted fruits. Aiming at various breeding goals, the base preserves 700 specific germplasm copies (including those in Yuanyang base, the same below) of Eucommia, kernel apricot, persimmon, almonds (almonds long-stalked), paulownia clones, other breeding groups, and particularly 300 copies of Eucommia core germplasm resources, etc. Among these germplasm resources, there are 61 of them has been identified as improved varieties, 14 of them were issued as national level caltivars.
