An inauguration ceremony for the National Saline-alkali Tolerant Rice Technology Innovation Center was held in Changsha on March 31, 2022.

Chen Fei, vice governor of Hunan Province, and Bai Lianyang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), unveiled the nameplate of the center. CAE academicians Zou Xuexiao and Shan Yang attended the ceremony.

The center is one of China's first batch of national agricultural technology innovation centers. It focuses on cultivating saline-alkali tolerant rice varieties and developing related key technologies. The research geographically covers all typical saline-alkali lands around China, and academically includes the aspects of genetic resources, biotechnology, genetic breeding, rice growing, soil and fertilizer, agro-ecology, agricultural information, and agricultural machinery. The center aims to cultivate 10 to 15 new rice varieties which are of significant application value and be adaptive to different saline-alkali lands by 2030. The planting area of these varieties will hit 100 million mu (about 6.67 million hectares) nationwide, with a yield per mu exceeding 300 kilograms.

The center was led and coordinated by the Hunan Provincial People’s Government, and jointly constructed by Hainan, Guangdong, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Heilongjiang provinces, and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Hunan will give play to its technology and talent advantages and provide core technologies; and, the other participating regions will be responsible for saline-alkali tolerant rice experiment, demonstration, and industrialization. Sub-centers in Hainan and Shandong provinces have been established recently.

“Planting 100 million mu of saline-alkali tolerant rice will contribute to an annual growth of rice yield by 30 billion kilograms,” said Tang Wenbang, director of the Hunan Hybrid-rice Research Center and director of the National Saline-alkali Tolerant Rice Technology Innovation Center.

This article is from Hunan Provincial Government www.enghunan.gov.cn.
 
Translator: Pang Yuehui
 
Chinese source: hunan.gov.cn