A new rice hybrid holds great promise for Chinese farmers after delivering high yields, scientists said.
According to researcher Yuan Longping, the new hybrid is able to produce 832.1 kilograms of rice per mu, the Global Times reported. The mu is a Chinese land measurement equivalent to 0.0667 hectares.
The measured yield reportedly has broken the world record for the output of "double season" early rice and is significantly greater than that of the previous year. In 2015, the average yield of early rice was 703.9 kilos per mu, while that of late rice is 759 kilos. Early rice is the rice variety planted in February to March and harvested between the months of June and July. Late rice is planted after former has already been harvested.
The new rice hybrid the product of a project initiated by the Guangdong Department of Agriculture and the Xingning Agricultural Bureau in 2015 aimed at increasing the yield of double season rice to 1500 kilos per mu within three years. The total yield for 2015 amounted to 1463.6 kilograms per mu.
Yuan said that the results they got are encouraging, as higher yield will help in achieving future food security. While China is currently not experiencing a food crisis and its agricultural yield is sufficient to meet domestic needs, the country's growing population is likely to add burden to the current supply.
He also said that, while the population is increasing, land available for farming is dwindling. Hence, it is important to increase the yield per unit area to compensate, People reported. Yuan said that6 this can be achieved by using advanced technologies such as fertilizer optimization, water conservation, and soil cultivation.
The project is the fifth one undertaken by Yuan and his team and is the first one to focus on double-season rice.