Visitors enjoy artwork of a portrait of Yuan Longping, a Chinese agronomist also known as the father of hybrid rice, during an exhibit at the Zhejiang Art Museum on Wednesday in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province. Photo: VCG

Yuan Longping, China's "father of hybrid rice" and his research team on Wednesday established the first planting base for "seawater rice" in the cold areas of Northeast China. Insiders said the goal of the project is to meet the requirements for growing rice in the region. 

Located in Tieli county, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, the planting base for seawater rice aims to conduct cold-resistant tasks in order to cultivate excellent rice varieties that can thrive in the saline-alkali lands and in low-temperature conditions, China Central Television (CCTV) reported. https:/tech.huanqiu.com/article/9CaKrnKmUnV

In 2019, about 20,000 mu (1,333.3 hectares) of Yuan's salt water-tolerant rice has been planted, but the number in Northeast China is less than 200 mu. 

"We are trying to make our rice able to cope with the cold, salt and alkali in Northeast China," Li Xinqi, a seawater rice expert at the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center, also a participant in Yuan's project, told the Global Times on Thursday.

According to Li, hybrid rice has a stronger body to resist severe environments but there is not much hybrid rice planted in Northeast China, especially in the saline-alkali areas.

"Our goal is to increase production and to promote large-scale planting of salt water-tolerant rice in the Northeast. By the end of 2022, we hope there will be over 10 million mu of salt water-tolerant rice (666,667 hectares) planted in the area, and I am confident that the rice yield can exceeded our initial goal of 300 kilograms per mu," Li said. 

According to reports, a test field for the salt water-tolerant rice in Daqing, a city in Heilongjiang Province 300 kilometers away from Tieli, achieved a yield of 500 kilograms per mu in 2018.

Li noted that large-scale rice cultivation can also improve the ecological environment of the local saline-alkali lands. 

According to CCTV, Yuan and his team have established eight experimental planting bases in five major saline-alkali regions in China as of now. 

Salt water-tolerant rice refers to saline-alkali-tolerant rice that is also resistant to common diseases and pests.