New high-quality wheat variety successfully bred by the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

Recently, in order to further confirm the yield performance of “Zhongmai 578”, Henan, Anhui, Jiangsu, Hebei, Shandong and other provinces successively held actual harvesting and weighing activities for “Zhongmai 578”. The activities showed that in actual harvesting and weighing activities in various places, the large-area yield of “Zhongmai 578” was close to that of high-yielding varieties, and its characteristics of being both high-quality and strong-gluten as well as high-yielding and stable-yielding met the needs of the industry and were widely recognized by the market and enterprises.

Among them, in the Jiaozuo area of Henan Province, the average yield per mu of 100 mu in Qinyang City was 730.1 kg, and the yield per mu in the high-yield research plot was 785.2 kg; in Yingshang County, Fuyang City, Anhui Province and Zhangqiu District, Jinan City, Shandong Province, the average yields per mu in the high-yield research plots were 745.6 kg and 718.5 kg respectively; the average yield per mu of 860 mu planted by the Jinshahe Crop Planting Professional Cooperative in Xingtai City, Hebei Province was 600.1 kg, equal to that of local high-yielding varieties and 9% higher on average than that of the main high-quality varieties. Relevant companies in Anhui, Shanghai and Hebei respectively signed agreements on the intention to purchase high-quality wheat of “Zhongmai 578”.

“Zhongmai 578” was bred over 20 years through cooperation between the Institute of Crop Sciences and the Cotton Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. It has passed variety approval in Henan Province and is currently participating in the production test for the southern Huang-Huai region and the second-year regional test for the northern Huang-Huai region, and is expected to pass national-level approval for the corresponding regions by the end of 2019 and 2020 respectively. According to years of multi-site trials and large-scale demonstration displays, this variety has outstanding characteristics such as high yield, early maturity, lodging resistance, disease resistance, stress resistance, wide adaptability, high quality, strong gluten and stable quality. In the regional test, its average yield increase was about 3% compared with the control, and in large-scale demonstrations its yield was equal to that of “Zhoumai 18” and “Jimai 22”; it matured on average 2 days earlier than the control, laying the foundation for early sowing of corn and conducive to a bumper harvest throughout the year; it is lodging-resistant, and its 1000-grain weight in normal years is above 50 grams, with good appearance and marketability. It is resistant to stripe rust, leaf rust and powdery mildew, moderately to lightly affected by Fusarium head blight, relatively tolerant to pre-harvest sprouting, has a fast grain-filling rate, is tolerant to high temperatures, and resists winter freezing injury and spring low temperatures. The average protein content of this variety is 14.7%, the water absorption rate is 60%, and the extensibility is 163 mm; the bread volume is 1000 ml and the score is 90 points, and the bread quality reaches the level of imported high-quality wheat.