China develops the world's highest-yielding rubber variety

Haikou, June 27 (Reporter Wang Xiaobin) The reporter learned from the Rubber Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the "Rubber Research Institute of the Tropical Sciences") on the 27th that the new rubber variety "Reyan 879" cultivated by the institute has an average annual yield of more than 200 kg/mu in ten years, which is the rubber variety with the highest known yield in the world.

Since the 20th century, people have begun to consciously optimize the varieties of rubber trees through breeding. Over the past century, the annual yield of dry rubber has been continuously improved from the initial 20-30 kg/mu of unselected seedlings, and has doubled in recent years. Since the 1950s, Chinese breeders have carried out the breeding of rubber tree varieties suitable for China's rubber planting environment on the basis of introducing excellent foreign asexual lines.

The breeding of natural rubber is a "relay marathon" - the offspring after the hybridization of parents must go through the stages of nursery initial screening and regional adaptability tests, and the entire cycle lasts for 41 years. After three generations of breeders' relay struggle, Chinese researchers have currently bred a batch of cold-resistant and wind-resistant high-yield varieties. Among them, the super high-yield variety "Reyan 879" is the variety with the highest yield per unit area in the world.

"With 2 to 3 months less rubber tapping time than foreign countries, the average annual yield per mu of 'Reyan 879' is as high as 202.1 kilograms, exceeding the highest single-yield variety 'RRIT251' in Thailand and 'RRIM2025' in Malaysia." Gao Xinsheng, one of the breeders of the "Reyan 879" variety and a researcher at the Rubber Institute of the Institute of Thermal Science, introduced that in the rubber planting areas of Hainan and Yunnan, compared with the control varieties, "Reyan 879" has a significant increase in yield.

Gao Xinsheng said that the creation of "Reyan 879" can be traced back to 1973, when Chinese researchers artificially hybridized the two varieties "Reyan 8813" and "Reyan 217", and then through continuous screening and identification of their offspring, finally cultivated this new excellent asexual line.

The results of "breeding and application of cold-resistant, wind-resistant and high-yield rubber tree varieties" including "Reyan 879" were awarded the second prize of the 2023 China National Science and Technology Progress Award on June 24 this year. The award-winning results also include "Reyan 7-33-97", the self-cultivated variety with the largest application area in China. The rubber produced by this variety has high tensile and tear strength, aging resistance, and quality that reaches or exceeds that of foreign imported products, and has been used in the manufacture of tires for China's domestic large aircraft.

Gao Xinsheng introduced that with the help of new varieties, the scope of China's rubber planting area has expanded from 24 degrees north latitude to above 25 degrees north latitude, and the rubber planting altitude has increased from 800 meters to 1,100 meters. In addition, the Chinese scientific research team has also excavated and created a batch of cold-resistant, wind-resistant and high-yield germplasms, and by creating an efficient breeding technology system, the rubber tree breeding cycle has been shortened from 41 years to 27 years, greatly improving the breeding efficiency.

"At present, 'Reyan 879' has been widely used in my country's rubber planting areas with light wind and mild cold, providing variety guarantee for high-yield rubber planting in this region." said Gao Xinsheng.