New upland rice variety developed in Shandong, agronomist Xu Defang successfully breeds it

In the golden autumn season, a new upland rice variety carefully cultivated over 3 years by Xu Defang, an agronomist at the Dongying Branch of the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, has achieved a bumper harvest. According to calculations, it yields more than double that of the current upland rice variety 297, with a yield of 600-650 kg per mu, marking a breakthrough in China's upland rice breeding.

Xu Defang used more than 30 ancestral lines provided by Professor Li Zichao of China Agricultural University, discovered a dwarf-stalk mutant line from the tall-stalk line 33-1, and from it selected a group of 9 lines, namely early-maturing glutinous rice, early-maturing japonica rice, mid-maturing glutinous rice, mid-maturing japonica rice, late-maturing glutinous rice, late-maturing japonica rice, long-grain japonica rice, and round-grain japonica rice. All have the advantages of dwarf stalks and large panicles, yielding more than double that of the current upland rice 297, and can be used both in water and dryland. According to Xu Defang, these lines can widely adapt to the Huang-Huai River basin region.

Since the discovery of dwarf rice varieties internationally in the 1950s, research has always focused on dwarf stalks with large panicles. Because such planting genes had not been found, the path of tall stalks with large panicles had always been followed. The successful breeding of this batch of new lines by Xu Defang has completely solved this historical problem. This batch of lines has a plant height of 80-90 cm, more than 2,000 grains per panicle, a seed-setting rate of over 95%, and great yield potential, about double that of currently promoted upland rice varieties, with excellent quality, high transparency, a white-belly rate below 15%, and even the rare long-grain japonica rice.

At the same time, when these lines are used as paddy rice, they also have the advantages of strong tillering and high panicle formation. Generally, a single plant has 12-13 tillers that form panicles, with an average of more than 180 filled grains and a 1,000-grain weight of 26 grams, increasing yield by more than 100 kg per mu compared with the currently promoted rice varieties Yujing 6 and Zhendao 88, with a per-unit yield reaching 750-800 kg.