Recently, the Institute of Tropical Biosciencelogy and Biotechnology of Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences(CATAS) independently selected and bred a new sugarcane variety "Zhongfu 1" by space radiation mutagenesis through carrying the Shenzhou 10 spacecraft. It is of practical significance to select New Sugarcane Varieties by means of space breeding to accelerate the breeding efficiency of new sugarcane varieties, promote the upgrading of sugarcane varieties and ensure the safety of the national seed industry.
"Zhongfu No. 1" sugarcane is a new sugarcane variety obtained by crossing "Ke5" as the female parent and "Chuantang 89-103" as the male parent. On June 11, 2013, it took Shenzhou No. 10 spacecraft to enter space for radiation and returned to the ground after 15 days in space. It was selected according to the sugarcane hybrid "five nursery system".
This variety is a middle late maturing variety, with high yield, high sugar, good persistent root, upright plant type, medium stem and strong tiller; Internodes are cylindrical and easy to defoliate; Resistance to Smut, high resistance to mosaic, good drought tolerance, and insensitive to herbicides. In the variety comparison test, the average yield per mu and the average sugar content per mu of "Zhongfu No. 1" and "xinliangsu" were 8854 kg and 1243 kg respectively, which were 29% and 27% higher than the current main variety "Xintaitang No. 22". At the same time, this variety is also suitable for mechanized harvesting and has strong popularization. At present, it has obtained the registration of non major crop varieties issued by the Ministry of agriculture and rural affairs.
In order to broaden the breeding methods of tropical crops and speed up the breeding process, CATAS has established the space breeding research center, with a view to creating excellent germplasm materials with independent intellectual property rights through space breeding, and then breeding breakthrough new varieties. Since 2013, it has selected and sent experimental materials for tropical crops such as sugarcane seedlings, and carried out space breeding by taking the Shenzhou series spacecraft into space.
At the same time, the Institute of Tropical Biosciencelogy and Biotechnology of Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences has developed a series of new varieties of "Zhongtang" through other breeding methods. Among them, "Zhongtang No. 3" sugarcane was selected as the main sugar variety of the Ministry of agriculture and rural areas in 2022. In the future, it will make full use of the scientific and technological resources of Nanfan Silicon Valley and the space breeding platform, and make use of the advantages of Hainan's space industry development to further innovate the tropical seed industry technology, cultivate more new varieties of tropical crops, and promote the development of the hot seed industry.
