Ecological suitability assessment and introduction experiment on Rosa damascena trigintipetala in Sichuan Province,China

This study comprehensively considered the climate, soil, terrain, and land-use type conditions suitable for Rosa damascena trigintipetala and further established an ecological suitability evaluation model of R. damascena trigintipetala in Sichuan Province, China, based on geographic information systems (GIS) and Agro-Ecological Zone (AEZ) models; then we assessed the different ecological suitability grades for this species in Sichuan Province of China and summarized the suitable land areas and spatial distribution pattern for R. damascena trigintipetala. The results show that the suitable areas (which contain highly suitable, generally suitable, and critically suitable areas) for R. damascena trigintipetala are 307.268×10₄ hm², which accounts for 6.34% of the total provincial area. Results also indicate that shrub land and open forest land are the major land-use types suitable for R. damascena trigintipetala, with the suitable areas of 303.162×10⁴ hm² (6.25% of the total provincial area). An introduction test was conducted in one of the suitable areas, Xichang City, which demonstrated that R. damascena trigintipetala grows well at the experimental sites. The quality of rose oil extracted from R. damascena trigintipetala planted in Xichang meets the Bulgaria Rose Oil Standard, thus verifying the accuracy and reliability of the ecological suitability assessment results.