Chinese agronomists have improved the quality of hybrid rice based on new research by Yuan Longping, who is known as the "Father of Hybrid Rice".

Yuan's strain is expected to be used on major hybrid rice fields by next year, which is expected to increase output by 5 billion kg.

He announced the new strain early last month, after producing 12,000 kg of grain per hectare on a dozen experimental fields in Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Yunnan, and Guangdong provinces.

A research team in Fujian Province found that they could further improve the rice by using nuclear radiation technology to produce mutated rice that could increase per-unit yields by 30 percent.

The new rice is expected to help add 5 billion kg of hybrid rice annually in China, according to Yang Rencui, a professor at Fujian Agriculture University.

China has 110 million hectares of land for grain and expects to produce 495 million tons of grain this year, about the same as for 1998.

Yang says that China has developed its rice in three stages this century. The first period was in the 1960s, when scientists reduced the height of the stem to keep it from bending. Yuan began using hybrid technology in the 1970s and increased rice output.

The high yields, however, have depended on a chemical called gibberellin that helps avoid genetic defects, but it means higher costs, Yang says, and excessive use of the chemical has a negative effect on genes, but genetic changes proved to be a solution to that problem. His research team is trying to register a new rice gene with the International Rice Heredity Association. (Xinhua)