Hainan's Yazhou Agricultural Park sets up seven new research groups — media

They will conduct research in areas such as crop phenotyping, protection and application of wild crop germplasm, new variety development technology, breeding with big data systems, intelligent and digital technology in agriculture, biosafety and risk assessment, and seed improvement, according to the newspaper.

The projects will involve specialists from the Nanfan Research Institute and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The Nanfan Research Institute pays special attention to attracting cutting-edge specialists - to date, 84 specialists have already started working at the institution, the article noted.

In total, the research teams have published more than 30 scientific papers and filed seven patent applications. Scientists from 11 institutions of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences work in Hainan on a permanent basis, including specialists in irrigated rice and cotton studies.

The Yazhou Agricultural Science and Technology Cluster was established in 2019. Its total area is about 70 square kilometers. The agricultural park includes the Nanfan Scientific and Research Breeding Base: so far, scientists have been able to breed more than 20,000 new crop varieties there, which is about 70% of China's national figure.