More than 10 thousand seeds bred in NanFang Agricultural Science and Technology Park in Hainan were planted in Changshu County, Jiangsu Province, according to the newspaper. Another six tons of irrigated rice seeds were planted in Jiaxing Autonomous County in Zhejiang Province. In addition, Hubei province completed a sowing campaign in May with tens of thousands of experimental samples, and Henan province planted several experimental vegetable varieties from Hainan's Ledong-Li Autonomous County. As the publication notes, Qingdao (eastern Shandong province) also planted more than 1,000 samples of hybrid salt-tolerant rice.

 

In May, Nanfan Science and Technology Park finished harvesting hybrid two-yield rice. Its yield was 1,500 kg per mu (Chinese area unit, 0.067 ha), or about 22.4 tons per hectare. The first harvest averaged 910 kg per mu (about 13.6 tons per hectare).

 

For the past 60 years, the NanFan Agricultural Scientific Park has diversified its areas of work, according to the publication. If previously it mainly focused on breeding irrigated rice and corn, now it also works on new varieties of flax, cotton, oilseeds, root crops, fruits, vegetables, flowers, herbs, medicinal plants, trees, as well as new types of aquatic crops, livestock and poultry - a total of 40 areas of research. There are 200 varieties of experimental cotton varieties and more than 60 species of chrysanthemums grown there.

 

So far, the NanFan Agricultural Base has produced a total of more than 20,000 new crop varieties, accounting for about 70% of China's national total.

 

The NanFan Breeding Research Base employs more than 8,000 specialists from more than 800 leading research institutions in 29 regions of China, according to authorities. Scientists say they continue to expand their research areas: for example, in February they observed abnormally low temperatures this year in Hainan for this tropical region, which affected the yield of experimental crops, but it made it possible to select cold-resistant varieties for the northern regions of China.