Chinese scientists develop cotton strain that boosts output by 25%

20 Sep '05

4 min read

The milestone advancement was pioneered by scientist Guo Sandui and his team at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The breakthrough won wide acclaim from officials and experts over the weekend.

Building on his success of insect-resistant, genetically-modified cotton, of which 2.3 million hectares was planted this year, Guo's research team in 1999 started to work out a molecular breeding system for hybrid cotton.

After years of hard work, Guo, the "father of Chinese Bt transgenetic cotton," was able to have his "Yinmian 2" cotton strain approved by the National Crop Cultivar Assessment Committee, which gave the go-ahead for its commercialization, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

The "three-line hybrid cotton with insect-resistant gene," if planted on the 3.33 million hectares of land where it is fit to grow, will theoretically increase output by 1 million tons each year.

That amounts to what conventional strains may be able to yield on 666,600 hectares, which is the equivalent size of all the cotton fields in the Yangtze River Delta, a leading cotton producer in China, Vice-Minister of Agriculture Fan Xiaojian said on Saturday.

With this remark, Fan was apparently pointing to the technology's potential power to ease the country's land allocation conflict between grain and cotton crops.

The "three lines" refer to the male-sterile, maintenance and restorer lines in cotton breeding.

Through genetic engineering and conventional breeding, Chinese scientists have manipulated these lines to ensure a hybrid cotton strain that maintains and multiples hybrid heterosis, leading to high quality and high yields, said Zhang Rui, one of Guo's aides.

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