A workers member does DNA sequencing at a laboratory of a quarantine middle for crops and animals of Haikou Customs on the Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, south China’s Hainan Province, Dec. 11, 2025. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)
SANYA, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) — While many components of China are reeling from bitter chilly in December, Sanya, a coastal metropolis in south China’s Hainan Province, stays heat as soybean breeding enters a busy season.
Tian Zhixi, chief scientist of the soybean seed innovation staff at Yazhouwan National Laboratory in Sanya, has been shuttling between trial fields and laboratories, hoping to extend and stabilize soybean yields.
“China’s soybean yield per unit area still lags behind countries such as the United States and Brazil, and we are working hard to catch up,” Tian stated.
Tian and his staff are actually creating new soybean varieties with greater and extra steady yields tailor-made to the distinct situations of China’s main soybean-producing areas.
China has sustained practically 20 p.c of the world’s inhabitants using simply 9 p.c of the world’s arable land, and high quality seeds, the agricultural “chips,” are central to that achievement. As an excellent location for scientific breeding, Nanfan breeding base in Hainan has witnessed the beginning of many improved varieties.
“Nanfan” refers back to the follow of utilizing the nice and cozy southern local weather to develop a number of generations of seed per yr, thereby shortening the breeding cycle. Since the Nineteen Fifties, researchers from throughout China have traveled to locations similar to Sanya, Lingshui and Ledong in Hainan to conduct seed breeding work, as these areas are round 18 levels north of the equator.
“Most areas in China can grow only one season of soybean crops a year. Growing an extra one or two seasons in Hainan drastically accelerated the breeding process,” Tian stated.
An aerial drone picture taken on Nov. 2, 2025 exhibits a view of the Sanya Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City in south China’s Hainan Province. (Xinhua/Pu Xiaoxu)
To stabilize desired traits after soybean hybridization, it sometimes requires seven to eight generations of propagation and choice. Tian’s staff has already begun multi-location soybean planting trials combining a number of fascinating traits throughout greater than a dozen provinces.
Tian and his staff have now developed greater than ten high-yield, high-quality soybean varieties. One notable success got here in September in Dongying, east China’s Shandong Province. On previously salt-crusted coastal fields, the brand new salt-tolerant selection “Guochuangdou 78” produced a report 369.15 kilograms per mu (about 5,537.25 kg per hectare), the very best yield ever recorded for salt-tolerant soybean in China.
Since 2021, China has been implementing a seed industry vitalization drive to strengthen seed breeding by means of joint analysis and to make sure self-sufficiency in seed sources. Today, greater than 95 p.c of crop varieties planted in China are independently bred. In 2024, for the primary time, China’s seed export quantity exceeded its import quantity.
During the rollout of the seed industry vitalization marketing campaign, Nanfan has develop into ever extra outstanding. Hainan is constructing a Nanfan “Silicon Valley,” and prime analysis institutes and main seed corporations have established bases right here, spurring a wave of cutting-edge breeding applied sciences and accelerating the event of latest varieties.
At Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, China’s first electron accelerator devoted to agricultural mutagenesis breeding is now in operation.
Xu Dechun, chief engineer of the electron accelerator mutagenesis breeding laboratory at Sanya, stated the ability has processed roughly 600,000 seeds and seedlings for practically 200 establishments nationwide, making a batch of early-maturing, high-yielding, and high-quality new germplasm assets.
The Nanfan “Silicon Valley” has attracted greater than 3,100 enterprises in the seed industry. Last yr, Hainan’s Nanfan seed industry output worth exceeded 18 billion yuan (2.6 billion U.S. {dollars}).
In 2021, China National Seed Group moved its headquarters to Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City in Sanya. Through collaboration with analysis groups, the group has filed 28 patents, utilized for 12 plant selection rights, and had 14 area crop varieties accepted.
“Ensuring food security must rely on scientific and technological progress and innovation,” stated Qian Qian, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and deputy director of the Yazhouwan National Laboratory. “The Nanfan ‘Silicon Valley’ will continue to support the high-quality development of the seed industry in the future.”
(Web editor: Wang Xiaoping, Liang Jun)