Plant factory technology enables five generations of rice propagation per year
Source: 中国之光网|| Views: 1259
Recently, the Smart Horticultural Equipment Innovation Team at the Institute of Urban Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, developed rapid breeding technology in plant factories, achieving 5-6 generations of rice propagation per year, and revealing rice quality characteristics. The related research results were published in Engineering, the journal of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Traditional crop breeding is highly dependent on climate and has a long cycle, allowing only 1-2 additional generations per year. Breeding a new variety usually takes 8-10 years or even longer. Accelerating the breeding generation process has become an important direction in global breeding research. This study leverages the technical advantages of precise control over environment and nutrition in plant factories. By using LED light recipes and their dynamic dimming, along with precise nutrient solution supply and other environment-nutrition coupling regulation technologies, it induces rapid growth, early flowering and fruiting in rice. For the first time, it achieved halving the rice growth period to 63 days for harvest in a plant factory environment, enabling 5-6 generations per year, significantly accelerating the rice propagation iteration speed; it also revealed the quality characteristics of rapidly propagated rice, effectively ensuring seed viability and the nutritional quality of rice grains. Meanwhile, this study solves the industrial problem of long rice breeding cycles, providing a new effective pathway for rapid breeding of other crops. This study was supported by projects such as the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Source: Institute of Urban Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
