February 22, 1999
Web posted at: 5:57 p.m. EST (2257 GMT)

BEIJING (Reuters) -- Ever on the lookout for innovative ways to feed its 1.2 billion people, China has turned to conditioning rice and wheat seeds in space to lift crop yields, state news media said late on Saturday.

Seven times in the past 11 years China has launched seed-laden satellites and balloons into the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere to expose them to strong doses of solar radiation, Xinhua news agency said.

The result was a minimum 10 percent boost over normal crop yields when the irradiated seeds were planted back on Earth.

"Seeds subjected to radiation at an altitude of between 20-400 km and other forms of special treatment offer greatly improved and much higher yields," it quoted Li Jinguo, a genetics expert at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, as saying.

The conditioned seeds have been planted across 70,000 hectares (175,000 acres) in Heilongjiang province in the northeast, Jiangxi and Shandong provinces in the east, and Hunan province in central China, Xinhua said.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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