Hainan’s Sanya city plans to build a germplasm base storing wild rice seed resources

Sanya city in south China’s Hainan province has unveiled plans to build a germplasm base for storing wild rice seed resources that will be able to preserve some 10,000 samples of rice seeds by 2022, Hainan Daily reported on Oct. 19.

A researcher works in a field of a saline-alkali tolerant rice research base in Sanya, Hainan province on April 6, 2021. (Photo/Xinhua)

Representing Hainan’s latest drive to push for the rejuvenation of the seed industry and innovations in the agricultural sciences, the base will focus on the preservation of wild rice seed resources, R&D on storing and breeding technologies for rare wild seed species, the identification and exploration of high-quality germplasm resources, and research into the natural breeding and evolution of ancestral wild rice species.

“Hainan has rich wild rice resources and the local environment is very suitable for the preservation of wild rice,” said Sun Tan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS). With assistance from various departments, the CAAS has intensified its efforts towards the preservation of wild rice species, striving to bring the number of wild rice seed samples to 30,000 over a period of two to three years.

According to a survey jointly carried out by the Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the CAAS, Hainan has 154 natural communities of wild rice species. Due to a variety of reasons, the number of places where wild rice can be found and the extent of the land on which wild rice plants can grow are both decreasing, which has led to wild rice being classified as a wild plant under key state protection in China.