Researchers breeding 'sea rice' to feed millions

Hainan crop breeding base a mecca for scientists and agriculturalists

May is harvest season at the Qingdao Sea Rice Research and Development Center's experimental fields in Hainan province.

Zhang Shuyin, a researcher with the center, which is based in Qingdao in Shandong province, puts on his sun hat and goes to the paddy fields with a notebook and a big bag of water. He stays there the whole morning.

The center has several hectares of experimental fields at the Sanya Nanfan Scientific and Research Breeding Base, where about 2,000 samples of different rice varieties are being cultivated.

"Every day we grow rice, and we think about rice," Zhang said. "The seedlings have become like our children, and we can't leave them for a single day."

Sea rice is not actually grown in the sea, it's rice that is salt-tolerant. This means rice that can still grow in soils with salt densities greater than 0.3 percent.