Scientists and experts check the hybrid wheat

Chinese experts say that China is leading the world in hybrid wheat research and application of cultivating a two-line hybrid wheat which can increase production by 20 percent, People’s Daily Overseas Edition reported.

Zhao Changping, director of the Beijing Hybrid Wheat Research Center, introduced that mass plantation of hybrid wheat has been a worldwide scientific problem for a long time, until Chinese researchers took the lead after 20 years of work, cultivating the two-line hybrid wheat.

The hybrid wheat has been proven to outperform the common wheat in terms of yield, water use, drought and disease resistance. It can increase production by 20 percent, save between 30 to 50 percent of the water used from farming common wheat and reduce sowing quantity by more than 30 percent.

Taking the Jingmai 9 hybrid wheat as an example, its yield has hit 739 kilograms per mu, breaking the world record, Zhao added.

China owns exclusive intellectual property rights to the hybrid wheat, and its overall research and development level in cultivating the wheat is leading the world, said the expert.

In addition, the Chinese research team initiated development of a mechanized seed production technology, achieving wide plantation of the hybrid wheat.

Plantation of the hybrid wheat covered an area of over 200,000 mu (13,333 hectares) by the end of 2017, and is expected to reach 1 million mu by 2020.

Zhang Yanqiu, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs also disclosed that China will spare no effort in developing the hybrid wheat seed industry.

Experts predict that China would have an additional 10 billion kilograms of wheat per year if the planting scale of hybrid wheat was to rival that of hybrid rice, adding that it will be of great significance in ensuring China’s food security in the future.