China’s sea rice development aims to feed millions

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China's first seawater rice fields in Qingdao, Shandong Province, were harvested on Thursday.

One type of seawater rice yielded 9.3 metric tons per hectare, the highest among the four types grown and much higher than expected, according to a report by agricultural experts who measured the harvest. The other three types yielded 8.2 tons, 7.4 tons and 6.6 tons per hectare.

"If 50 percent of the world's rice paddies grew hybrids, rice production would increase by another 150 million tons, and 400 to 500 million more people could be fed," said Yuan Longping, leader of the seawater rice research, and known as "the father of hybrid rice" in China.

Yuan said the seawater rice is vital to China's food security.

Seawater rice, or salt-alkali-tolerant rice, is designed to grow in tidal flats and saline-alkaline land and can survive after being immersed in seawater.

The world has 950 million hectares of saline and alkaline land, with Asia accounting for about one-third of that total, of which China has 100 million hectares of saline-alkaline soil.

Growing rice is the best way to improve the quality of this soil, according to Yuan.

Yuan's team plans to develop a type of seawater rice that can be planted in 6.67 million hectares of saline-alkaline land around China, which they estimate could boost the country's rice harvest by about 20 percent.

"Sea rice grown on saline-alkaline land has more mineral content than ordinary rice because seawater contains high levels of microelements," said Yang Hongyan from Qingdao's Seawater Rice Research and Development Center, a research center Yuan set up last year in Qingdao for seawater rice development along with his team.

"Sea rice grows in a wild environment, is not contaminated by heavy metals and isn't subject to plant diseases or insect pests," Yang added.

The rice harvested this time was grown in two fields that were planted in April. Yuan said that, because of this initial success, the planting area of seawater rice will be expanded next year.

(Top photo: Researchers harvest seawater rice in Qingdao, Shandong Province, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2017. /China Daily Photo)

Source(s): China Daily