Yuan
Longping, the Chinese scientist known worldwide as the "father
of hybrid rice", and the
Chinese University of Hong
Kong Tuesday announced a cooperation program on developing the
3rd generation of Chinese Hybrid Rice.
The program aims at further increasing the yield of hybrid rice as
well as enhancing its quality and stress tolerance with the help of
recent progress in the decoding of rice genome and traditional
breeding techniques.
Professor Yuan anticipates a 20 to 25 percent increase in the yield
of the 3rd generation super-hybrid rice over the current Chinese
hybrid rice.
"We hope the yield of the hybrid rice will rise to 900 kg per
mu (0.0667 hectare) in 2008 or even in 2006," Yuan said.
Currently, rice provides the major source of food for half of the
world's population and hybrid rice occupies about half of the total
rice cultivation areas in China. Its yield accounts for 57 percent
of the total rice production in the country.
Chinese hybrid rice developed by Professor Yuan produces an average
of 20 percent more crop than normal, benefiting 100 million people
per year. The market value of Chinese hybrid rice is 100 billion
yuan (US$12.1 billion).
Professor Yuan will conduct the research on 3rd generation of
hybrid rice with professor Samuel Sun and professor Hon-Ming Lam of
the department of biology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong
and professor Maurice Ku of the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University.
Professor Sun has cloned the world's first plant gene in 1980.
Since then, he has been actively involved in crop improvement
programs using biotechnology.
Professor Ku, an expert in photosynthesis regulation, reported the
successful transformation of a major photosynthetic gene from maize
into rice in 2000. The photosynthetic capacity and yield of the
transformed rice were increased up to 30 percent.
Professor Lam's research is specializing in metabolic engineering
of nitrogen assimilation and molecular mechanism of stress
tolerance, processes that are closely related to plant growth and
development.
"We have a very strong team involving Chinese scientists from
China, Hong Kong and the United States," Yuan said.
(People’s Daily 07/04/2001)