Why Sea Rice Excites Chinese Rice Experts

"If rice could be planted on 1.48 billion mu of saline-alkali land, thereby breaking through the constraint of our country's limited 1.8 billion mu of arable land resources, it would greatly alleviate the three major crises facing humanity: water resources, arable land and food." On December 10, more than 100 Chinese sea rice experts and scholars, including Chen Risheng, the discoverer of sea rice, gathered in Wuhan to exchange views on the research and application of sea rice and outline its future development.

Chen Risheng, the discoverer of sea rice, recalled that in 1986, he followed his teacher to the seaside to investigate mangroves and discovered a wild sea rice with strong alkali tolerance, strong disease resistance and strong vitality. From then on, he began breeding research on this variety, and starting in 1993, he took this rice seed to various parts of the country for trial planting. Chen Risheng spent 30 years, and sea rice was increased from a yield of 50 kg per mu to 150 kg.

Deng Gansheng, chief agronomist of the Hubei Provincial Department of Agriculture, said bluntly: Hubei's agricultural production also needs the excellent genes of sea rice. "After being flooded by seawater for three or four days, the leaves of sea rice are still green. If this waterlogging-resistant gene can be successfully obtained, it would be of great significance to the entire southern region."

Zhang Qifa, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said: "The greatest significance and value of sea rice lies in its salt-alkali tolerance, enabling planting on saline-alkali land and expanding our country's rice-growing belt. This is a remarkable contribution." Academician Zhang expressed that in sea rice research, everyone should strive to do a good job, hoping that on the land of China, and also in the world, excellent varieties bred from the sea rice resources discovered by Chinese people can be planted.

Zhu Yingguo, a hybrid rice expert, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor at Wuhan University, believes that if the traits of sea rice are further combined with our country's "Honglian" rice lines to achieve hybrid vigor, then in the future a large number of coastal tidal flats and inland saline-alkali lands could become grain production bases, thereby breaking through the constraint of our country's limited 1.8 billion mu of arable land resources. This can not only improve our country's grain supply capacity and safeguard national food security, but also promote agricultural efficiency and increase farmers' income.

Professor Li Xinming from the University of California, Los Angeles, reported on the previous systematic molecular biology research on sea rice, including whole-genome sequencing, transcriptome expression and genetic evolution. Experts from Yangtze University, Qingdao Agricultural University, the Crop Research Institute of the Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Coastal Agriculture Research Institute of the Hebei Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Sciences, and Jingchu Seed Industry respectively introduced progress on discussions of the saline-alkali tolerance threshold of sea rice, research on the saline-alkali tolerance mechanism, research on the improvement effects on saline-alkali land, and the use of sea rice for hybrid breeding.

At the Symposium on Sea Rice Research and Application, the "Wuhan Sea Rice Biotechnology Research Institute" was officially unveiled, with experts and entrepreneurs joining hands to jointly build a sea rice research platform for "science-enterprise cooperation and collaborative research." (Reporter Liu Zhiwei, Correspondent Zhu An'an)