In Bhutan the planting of a small number of Ziziphus buddhensis was initiated in 2016 by planting Ziziphus buddhensis seedlings on Zhabdrung Kuchoe and in 2018, the Department of Forest and Park Services (DoFPS) procured 1000 numbers of Ziziphus budhensis seedlings from Nepal and distributed across all the 20 Dzongkhags for trial plantation. Some of the Chemshing planted are fairly doing well, particularly in Punakha, Trashigang, Trashiyangtse, Zhemgang, Dagana, Samdrup Jongkha, Tsirang but it was reported chemshing seedlings does not grow well in the moist areas.
As a part of the Million Fruit Tree Program, about 5000 chemshing (Ziziphus buddhensis) seedlings were brought from Temal village (an area growing high-quality chemshing) in Nepal and distributed to the farmers of Punakha, Tsirang, Dagana, Trashigang, Trashiyangtse, Lhuentse and Mongar. These dzongkhags are selected based on the good performance of chemshing seedlings which were distributed in 2016 and 2018. However, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests have started raising chemshing seedlings in different dzongkhags- Punakha, Mongar, Trashigang, and Tsirang, and have started growing chemshing seedlings and most of the seedlings seem to be doing very well. It is expected that by 2023, the Ministry will be able to distribute more chemshing seedlings to more people of Bhutan in most of the dzongkhags. Producing chemshing seedlings in the country will increase every year and one day our Bhutanese will have sufficient chemshing producing desirable chem beads.
-FRMD
