Seedlings of the latest variety of super hybrid rice, masterpiece of a renowned Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping, are growing on the third floor of the China National Pavilion in the Shanghai World Expo park.

In a triangle-shaped experimental field with an area of 10 square meters, the seedlings are nourished by nutrient soil in white oval-shaped flowerpots and bathed under beams from electric incandescent lamps.

"There is a set of scientific and meticulous rules to grow the seedlings as regards watering and lighting. For example, they must be watered in the morning," said a guide in the Pavilion.

The seedlings traveled to Shanghai by plane after being cultivated for a period at the China National Hybrid Rice R&D Center which is headed by Yuan and based in the central province of Hunan, the guide said.

Farmers would be able to plant rice indoor when the specially designed new variety passes the trial period.

A harvest is expected in the pavilion when the rice seedlings, whose output is expected to top 800 kg per mu (667 square meters), almost doubling the current average of 450 kg, turns ripe in September.

Dubbed "Father of Hybrid Rice", the 80-year-old Yuan developed China's first hybrid rice species in the 1970s.

Now, the high-yielding species are planted in more than half of China's farmland and helps raise China's grain output from 113.18 million tonnes in 1949 to 528.71 million tonnes in 2008.

(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2010)