Chinese scientists announced Thursday they have bred the world's
first hybrid soybean with more than two decades of unremitting
efforts.
The hybrid passed its certification by crop breeding authorities in
northeast China's Jilin
Province Wednesday.
Research leader Sun Huan, a world-renowned soybean geneticist from
the provincial agricultural academy, said his team had worked on
their own and claimed full intellectual property rights.
Sun's team, which began its research 20 years ago, acquired in 1993
the technology to develop a cytoplasmic-nuclear male sterile line,
which passed appraisal by Chinese and American experts the same
year and was cited as a major breakthrough in soybean hybridizing
technology.
Scientists worldwide had been seeking a way to breed hybrid
soybeans, Sun said, but they could not make a breakthrough because
of difficulty involved in changing the plant's trait of
self-pollination.
Using the leaf-cutting bee as a pollinator, the proportion of seeds
setting on the new hybrid can reach more than 70 percent. Repeated
experiments showed that a hectare of this hybrid can yield 1,000
kilograms of soybean, 20 percent more than usual breeds commonly
grown by local farmers.
The soybean is regarded as the crop of the 21st century worldwide
because of its high protein content. Most countries have been
trying hard to raise soybean yields, but worldwide the yield
increases only 0.5 percent every year.
China, traditionally home to soybean crops, has cultivated the
plant for a history of more than 5,000 years. Nevertheless, the
United States has taken China's place as the world's biggest
soybean producer.
(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2003)