In 2005, China?痵 phase II super hybrid rice breeds can hit the expected target, reaching 12 tons for per hectare yield, or 2.25 tons more compared with the current yield level, said YUAN Longping, Director of the National Research Center for Hybrid Rice Engineering, at an international seminar on commercial applications of hybrid rice held recently in Nanchang, Jiangxi. YUAN added that if the hybrid breeds could grow over an area of 13 million hectares, an additional 30 million tons of grains would be produced to feed a population of 75 million people.
YUAN and his colleagues are currently working hard to bring out phase II super hybrid rice breeds, and have achieved encouraging progresses. Some of the breeds developed from the efforts promise the potentials to hit a yield of 13 tons per hectare. A most promising breed recorded a level of 12 tons per hectare in four experimental plots in 2003, and maintained the same level in 12 experimental plots in 2004. In addition, the National Research Center for Hybrid Rice Engineering applauded a substantive progress made in developing phase II super hybrid rice breeds. A newly developed breed featured with a short production cycle has registered a yield of 10.3 tons per hectare in 2004, and expects to hit 10.5 tons in 2005.
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