Yuan Longping, hybrid-rice expert and winner of 2000 State Supreme Science and Technology Award, told that his research and breeding of 863 Super Hybrid Rice has fulfilled the first-stage goal set.
Currently, his second-period experiments are smooth sailing and proved to be fruitful. He showed optimism over his second-stage 800kg/mu target to be realized two years in advance.
Another name of Super Hybrid Rice Plan (SHRP) called Seed Selection and Breeding of Super Rice Yield Plan, first put forward by a Japanese in 1980, which soon became a difficult issue that agronomists worldwide had targeted. China's approach in 1996 took a late step, however, witnessed a sound development. The project in China, led by Yuan Longping, reputed as "father of hybrid rice", has gathered around him some thousand experts from 20 institutions and units for seed breeding backed with a two-term Premier Fund.
According to Yuan, China's SHRP falls into two steps: Extensive trial planting during the first stage has realized some 700kg/mu and had passed assessment by the state last year. The great achievements put China in the front row of the world's SHRP research.
The ongoing 2nd object is expected to come up with 800kg/mu from the like trial seeding by 2005. Yuan continued that what made him so optimistic was a sound situation as shown by his experiment: a 7 to 10 percent rise over 700kg/mu has been achieved; meanwhile, a new planting method has been developed, which will bring a raised yield of some ten percent.
(People's Daily 02/21/2001)
