QINGDAO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A team led by Yuan Longping, the renowned agronomist known for developing the first hybrid rice strains, launched an ambitious program for planting 10,000 mu (about 660 hectares) of rice in saline-alkali soil in east China's Shandong Province on Thursday.
Workers have started to level 330 hectares of saline-alkali soil in Qingdao, a coastal city of Shandong. Rice seedlings will be transplanted in May.
According to Zhang Guodong, deputy director of Qingdao's saline-alkali tolerant rice research and development center led by Yuan, they will plant the other 330 hectares of saline-alkali tolerant rice in Dongying and Weifang, also coastal cities of Shandong.
Yuan did not visit the program site due to the coronavirus epidemic, but he sent a letter conveying his support.
The team will plant Chaoyou 1000, a promising super hybrid rice combination, in the saline-alkali soil. The team planted 500 mu of Chaoyou 1000 in Dongying last year, and the yield reached 600 kg per mu, according to Yuan's letter.
Researchers on Yuan's team tested growing rice in saline-alkali soil last year in six bases across China, including Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the provinces of Heilongjiang, Shandong and Zhejiang.
They also succeeded in planting saline-alkali tolerant rice in Dubai of the United Arab Emirates.
The total testing areas amounted to 20,000 mu and the yield reached over 500 kg per mu.
China has about 100 million hectares of saline-alkali soil, of which about one-fifth could be ameliorated to arable soil.
