China’s rapeseed breakthrough could yield abundant winter crops, boost seed self-reliance
- A new variety of rapeseed – with a shorter growth cycle, increased cold tolerance, and earlier fertility – is being tested, and it could take advantage of vacant winter farmland
- Application of new rapeseed variety could increase China’s self-sufficiency in vegetable oil by about 12 percentage points
Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in improving the yield of rapeseed plants, potentially leading to increased domestic production and less reliance on imported vegetable oil.
The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) is testing its new rapeseed variety in eastern China’s Jiangxi province, with an aim to take advantage of idle fields during the winter months.
“As China’s major oilseed crop, rapeseed accounts for half of the domestically produced oil, and there are more than 64 million mu [about 4.27 million hectares, or 10.6 million acres] of unused fields in the winter after the rice-planting season. This creates huge potential for rapeseed expansion and production,” Wang Xinfa, a CASS researcher, was quoted as saying in an interview with the official Science and Technology Daily.
The new rapeseed breed could utilise vacant winter farmland to increase vegetable oil production and further ease China’s dependence on overseas vegetable oils.
This new rapeseed variety has been developed to reduce the main constraints of winter sowing, including a shorter growth cycle, increased cold tolerance, and earlier fertility, according to the CAAS website.
