China has set a series of new world records in hybrid-rice output, the Hunan provincial government announced. The records were set by Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice”.
Since the beginning of the year, Yuan’s team have managed 42 hybrid-rice test fields in 16 provincial regions across China, including Yunnan, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Chongqing and Hunan.
A new world record in output of double-cropping rice was set in southern China’s Guangdong province, which achieved an annual yield of 1,537.78 kilograms of rice per mu (666 square metres) of farmland.
In two other projects in Hebei and Yunan Yunnan, the crops have yielded as much as 1,082.1kg per mu and 1,088kg per mu. Both have broken previous world records for the highest yield in high-latitude areas as well as output on 100 mu of farmland.
Other projects in Shandong, Hubei and Guangxi all broke previous regional records in China.
Hybrid rice, also known as super rice in China, is produced by crossbreeding different kinds of rice. About 65 per cent of Chinese depend on rice as a staple food.
Yuan, who developed the world’s first hybrid rice in 1974, also set three world records in hybrid-rice yield in 1999, 2005 and 2011.
“Super rice has a bright future in raising grain production. China has solved the problem of food shortages on our own, [and] people in other countries are also benefiting. Super rice will play a larger role in food security and world peace in the future,” Yuan said. – China Daily