Demonstration and promotion of high-quality, high-yield rice for cold regions carried out in Heilongjiang

The National Agricultural Science and Technology Leap Program project "Integration and Demonstration of New High-Quality, High-Yield Rice Varieties for Cold Regions and Vegetative Matter Cultivation Technology" was officially launched on March 2 in Heilongjiang Province. The project is undertaken by the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University, and it is the first time that Heilongjiang Province's rice planting industry has been included in the National Leap Program.

The project uses as its core technology three new high-quality, high-yield rice varieties of different maturity periods - Songjing No. 9, Longdao No. 5, and Longjing No. 14 - which were approved and promoted by the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the past two years and have passed national super rice acceptance, along with mechanical transplanting of vegetative matter pot seedlings, and integrates and assembles water-saving techniques for conservation tillage rice, mechanized rice transplanting cultivation techniques, and dry-raised sparse-planted rice cultivation. The quality indicators of the three varieties bred by the academy all reached the national second-grade quality rice standard, with yields in the 100-mu experimental area reaching 700 kg/mu, and they also have strong stress resistance. The mechanical transplanting technology for vegetative matter pot seedlings is a new rice production technology independently developed by Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University, which solves the resource shortage problem caused by the use of soil for seedling raising and achieves "soilless cultivation."

According to Lai Yongcai, director of the Crop Cultivation Research Institute of the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, rice production in Heilongjiang Province has developed rapidly and has already exceeded 30 million mu. After the two-year project succeeds, using the project's core varieties to produce a pure-variety high-quality rice brand, rice can increase income by 2-5 fen per kg.

The project will adopt a chief expert responsibility system, establish a high-quality and efficient rice cultivation technology demonstration area of 36,000 mu, with a radiation area of 3 million mu, and establish a stable technical system for sustainable development of rice production. The core demonstration area will achieve a yield of 650 kg per mu, and the demonstration area will achieve a yield of 600 kg per mu, an increase of more than 15% over existing main promoted varieties, driving a substantial increase in farmers' income.