A Chinese team of scientists has been awarded the highest international prize in the field of nuclear technology applications in agriculture.

On September 26, reporters learned from the National Atomic Energy Agency that, on September 20 during the 65th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the IAEA held an awards ceremony in Vienna to honor the highest international accolades in the field of nuclear technology applications to agriculture. A team of Chinese scientists, selected and recommended by China’s National Atomic Energy Agency, was awarded three major prizes: the Award for Outstanding Achievement, the Award for Outstanding Women, and the Young Scientist Award. Notably, the “Wheat Mutation Breeding” research team from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences received the Award for Outstanding Achievement. Guo Huijun, an associate researcher at the Institute of Crop Science of the Academy, and Yang Zhen, a researcher at the Hunan Provincial Institute of Nuclear Agriculture and Space Breeding, were awarded the Award for Outstanding Women and the Young Scientist Award, respectively.

The “Wheat Mutation Breeding” research team of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has been awarded the “Outstanding Achievement Award” in nuclear‑technology‑based mutation breeding. (Photo provided by the interviewed institution.)

In his award‑presentation address, Qu Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, stated: “Nuclear‑technology‑induced mutation breeding has improved crop varieties, ensuring agricultural production in the face of climate change and contributing to increased farmer incomes and sustainable development.”

Liu Luxiang, head of the “Wheat Mutation Breeding” research team at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a project coordinator for the International Atomic Energy Agency, explained that mutation breeding primarily involves treating crop seeds with various physical and chemical mutagenic agents, such as gamma rays and the space environment, to induce spontaneous genetic mutations during the evolutionary process.

To date, countries have leveraged this technology to develop more than 3,300 new varieties across 214 plant species, generating annual direct economic benefits amounting to several billion U.S. dollars. Over the past decade, the team has successfully bred eight novel wheat mutant lines exhibiting outstanding traits such as high and stable yields, water-use efficiency and drought tolerance, lodging resistance, and superior grain quality. Among these, the wheat mutant variety Luyuan 502 has addressed the longstanding challenge of lodging in heavy‑spike‑type cultivars, consistently achieving field yields exceeding 800 kilograms per mu for many years. It has been widely adopted across over 80 million mu in provinces and municipalities including Shandong, Anhui, Hebei, and Shanxi, becoming the second most extensively promoted wheat variety nationwide, accounting for 6.5% of the country’s total wheat acreage. This has resulted in an additional grain output of more than 4 billion kilograms, ensuring sufficient food supplies for 10 million people for one year.

Dr. Guo Huijun, recipient of the “Outstanding Women Award,” serves as the coordinator for the lead country in the Asia-Pacific Nuclear Science and Technology Cooperation Program. Under her leadership, her team has established a comprehensive ground-based radiation‑induced mutation breeding platform for wheat diversification, continuously refined high‑throughput technologies for detecting and screening mutant genes, and jointly developed seven new wheat varieties exhibiting improved traits such as drought tolerance, disease resistance, and lodging resistance, with a cumulative area of 5.548 million hectares under cultivation.

Dr. Yang Zhen, a recipient of the “Young Scientist Award,” has pioneered, both domestically and internationally, research on the application of radiation‑induced breeding techniques that employ high‑energy electron beams and high‑energy heavy ion beams as mutagenic agents. He spearheaded the development of a novel method for the rapid, targeted screening of offspring carrying desired traits, significantly enhancing the accuracy and efficiency of such trait‑specific mutant selection. As a key participant, he utilized gamma‑ray mutagenesis to develop a new rice variety with reduced cadmium uptake, which has been widely adopted across 4.65 million mu of farmland, yielding an additional 130 million kilograms of grain and generating cumulative income gains of RMB 350 million for farmers.

Nuclear‑induced mutation breeding is hailed as a modern breeding technique that follows selection breeding and hybridization breeding. China is a global leader in this field; by the end of 2020, it had developed and approved 1,033 mutant varieties, accounting for nearly one‑third of all new mutant varieties worldwide. These achievements have played a unique role in safeguarding China’s food security, promoting green agricultural development, supporting the battle against poverty, and advancing rural revitalization. They have also made significant contributions to addressing global food‑security challenges, eradicating hunger and poverty, and realizing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Source: Science and Technology Daily