The director of the Iranian Agriculture Ministry's Medicinal Plants National Plan visited the first and largest Opuntia nursery in Iran, located in Yazd Province.

 

The nursery produces and propagates advantageous, water-efficient, and highly resistant Opuntia cactus plant seedlings.

During the visit, Hossein Zeynali said Yazd Province will soon turn into Iran’s largest Opuntia Cactus production center. 

According to the Ministry of website, in light of Yazd Province's transformative agricultural project and medicinal plant development to achieve the goals of the Seventh Development Plan, a 5-hectare nursery for the production of seedlings of the advantageous, water-efficient, and highly resistant Opuntia cactus plant has been successfully established in Yazd, producing over one million seedlings.

This nursery, established by the private sector with a focus on realizing the year's slogan in the historical city of Yazd, aims to provide the necessary seedlings and expand cultivation on over 250 hectares of farms in Yazd Province. It is supported by the technical, scientific, and promotional expertise of specialists, officials, and experts of the province's Agriculture Organization.

 This initiative heralds an effective step and a bright future for the development of medicinal plants, particularly Opuntia farms, in Yazd Province and the country.

Opuntia, commonly called the prickly pear cactus, is a genus of flowering plants in the cactus family Cactaceae, many known for their flavorful fruit and showy flowers. Cacti are well-adapted to aridity, however, they are still vulnerable to alterations in precipitation and temperature driven by climate change.