With the fragrance of rice, the first batch of salt-tolerant rice cultivars are in maturity in Qingdao, the achievement of the lab of Qingdao Sea Rice Research and Development Center.

Yuan Longping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, came to Qingdao to inspect the lab as well as the national demonstration base of improved sea rice in Jinkou Town.

Yuan’s birthday, August 30, fell during his Qingdao trip, so a group of young R&D staff prepared a cake with the Chinese character for rice on it to celebrate the birthday of the 88-year-old beside a rice paddy at the lab.

Yuan has been dedicated to rice research for more than 60 years. Each grain of rice embodies the obsession of the scientist on grain production.

Last year, Yuan took command as the director and chief scientist of Qingdao Sea Rice Research and Development Center, getting down to the cultivation of sea rice in Qingdao.

The lab first collected 234 copies of salt-tolerant rice material from the International Rice Research Institute and rice institutions throughout China for planting and screening, including the first batch of 174 copies of sea rice sowed by Yuan.

"Our goal is to develop hybrid sea rice. Judging from the current growth, we expect to develop sea rice whose tolerance to salinity reaches 0.3% with a yield of more than 300 kilograms per mu by 2020." said Yuan.

Sea rice is growing well [Photo by Xing Zhifeng/Qingdao Today]