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CHANGSHA, Oct. 22-- The third-generation hybrid rice developed by Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice," and his team underwent its first public yield monitoring from Monday to Tuesday and achieved high output. The final yield of the tested variety, G3-1S/P19, came to 1,046.3 kg per mu (about 667 square meters), based on two plots of land in Qingzhu Village under the city of Hengyang in central China's Hunan Province. Experts agreed that the rice has a stout stem, fertilizer tolerance, lodging resistance, large spike and more grains. "One of the most important characteristics of the third-generation hybrid rice is that it has a shorter growing period," said Qian Qian, deputy director of the China National Rice Research Institute. Qian said some previous high-yielding hybrid rice varieties in China took 160 to even 180 days from sowing to harvesting, while the figure was shortened to around 125 days for the new variety. "A shorter growth period can reduce the use of pesticides and fertilizers, thus reducing cost and improving production efficiency," Qian said. Unlike the previous two generations that required a large amount of water and fertilizers as well as demanding growing conditions and technological support, the third-generation hybrid rice is easier to be cultivated by ordinary farmers. The soil, altitude and climate of the test site were not "ideal conditions" carefully selected beforehand but were close to the paddies of ordinary farmers, according to Zhao Bingran with Hunan hybrid rice research center. | 
