NANNING, Oct. 9 -- An 83.3-hectare research base for hybrid rice breeding was inaugurated Wednesday in Guanyang County, southern China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

The research base is part of a newly-launched workstation of Yuan Longping, an agronomist known as China's "father of hybrid rice."

Yuan and his team will focus on breeding high-yielding hybrid rice strains adaptive to various environments. They aim to develop rice strains that can achieve a yield of more than 1,200 kg per mu (about 0.07 hectares), or 18 tonnes per hectare.

Yuan said at the unveiling ceremony that his team would work to increase the output of hybrid rice as well as to improve its quality.

He added that his workstation is located in Guanyang because the county has a very high yield of super hybrid rice and ratoon rice.

Earlier this year, Guanyang saw its weighted average yield of its super hybrid rice exceeding 1,000 kg per mu in one season.