Global Times reported on April 27 that in the recent mission of China’s spacecraft Shenzhou-13, a breakthrough in space seed breeding has been achieved. A total of 12,000 seeds—clover, oats, rice, edible mushrooms [from spawns], and cabbage—returned with the crew on April 17.
It has been 35 years since China’s first space seed breeding effort in 1987, and nearly 1,000 new species have been created, of which 200 have displayed outstanding performance, according to media reports.
One of the well-known dangers of cosmic radiation in space is that it can damage DNA and cause undesired mutations. However, Chinese scientists took advantage of this quality—space seed breeding uses this effect to deliberately mutate the genes of seeds sent into space, in order to create new species for greater variety. According to Yang Hongshan, an expert at the Lanzhou Institute of Husbandry and Pharmaceutical Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, on Earth, “ it takes 10 years to breed a new species of clover, and oats may take seven to eight years.”
Clover is one of most important feed materials for livestock which remains a shortcoming for the country’s agricultural sector.
