Source: Shanghai Daily via Checkbiotech
By Zhang Jun

China's latest "agricultural revolution" isn't taking place on farmland around the country - it is being conducted in outer space.

Researchers from hundreds of universities and institutes across China are conducting studies on seeds that have been exposed to the zero gravity, super vacuum and cosmic radiation found outside our atmosphere.

Several scientists in Shanghai are involved in the project, mainly working with corn and barley for use in beer.

The project aims to enrich Chinese dining tables as well as to increase the incomes of the country's 900 million farmers, experts said.

"We want to develop a theoretical system for space breeding (of seeds)," said Liu Luxiang, director of the Space Breeding Center at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

China started sending crop seeds into space on retrievable satellites in 1987. In September of last year, the country launched "Shijian-8," its first satellite built specifically for experimenting on seeds in space.

About 2,000 seeds in nine categories, including cotton, green peppers, rice, edible oils and flowers, were loaded onto the satellite for two weeks of exposure to outer space.

Researchers at 138 institutes, universities and companies around China are now conducting studies on the retrieved seeds and the crops they produce.

Scientists say they hope to create seeds suitable for large-scale farming in China within the next five years. It would take another two to three years for crops to be judged by a national quality jury, a key step before the crops would go on the market in large quantities.

"We hope to localize some new species of barley that are resistant to diseases," said Huang Jianhua, director of the academy's biotechnology research institute.

Currently, China imports most of the barley used to make beer as domestically grown crops are low quality due to their weak resistance to diseases and geological forces such as temperatures, salt levels in the soil and high humidity.

Huang said if the space-bred barley proves to be higher quality than current crops, the academy will consider promoting the crop on Chongming Island. The high level of salt in soil on Chongming makes it a poor place for growing barely at the moment.

Even before the launch of Shijian-8, scientists had proven differences existed between seeds sent to space and normal seeds.

Their studies showed that after exposed to outer space, rice and tomato seeds saw their yields increase by about 20 percent, cucumber became more crispy, and the Vitamin C content in green peppers increased by up to 25 percent.

"Our next step is to localize the seeds and grow more," Huang said.

The mutations in the germination and sprouting of plants are caused by their exposure to the zero gravity, super vacuum and cosmic radiation. Huang says the radiation is similar to cooking food with a microwave oven.

Researchers now want to simulate the effects of outer space here on Earth to reduce the cost of breeding the seeds, according to Liu of the national Space Breeding Center.

He said the Shijian satellite has equipment to record the level of cosmic radiation seeds are exposed to.

The recorded data will be used to mimic the situation in space on Earth as well as to help explain the genetic reasons behind space-triggered mutations.

Cutting the cost of mutating seeds is important as the effects wear off after several generations.

If scientists can't create seeds that carry mutations forever, a new line of seeds will have to be introduced every few generations, which would be prohibitively expensive if the seeds had to be sent to space.

The United States and Russia are also capable of breeding seeds in space but haven't grown space mutated crops on a large scale, officials said.

Space-bred food vs GM crops

UNLIKE genetically modified food, food produced from space-bred seeds doesn't induce "outlying genes" to cause genetic changes such as the yield or taste of crops.

There is no universally accepted scientific evidence to prove either GM food or space-bred seeds are safe.

However, a majority of scientists believe both types of food are safe and won't cause any problems if consumed.

The genetic mutations in space-bred food are caused by their exposure to the zero gravity, super vacuum and cosmic radiation of outer space.

Previous studies show that exposure to outer space will cause many kinds of crops to grow bigger, faster and more tasty than traditional crops.

With GM food, scientists induce new genes to cause specific genetic mutations, such as making them resistant to pests, better able to deal with soil conditions, or able to produce higher yields.

The technology used in GM food is mature and has been widely applied in crops such as maize, soybeans and cotton. In some countries, GM food must be labeled so consumers know what they are buying.

No such regulations exist for space-bred crops at present.

Research time line

Since 1987, China have successfully loaded crop seeds onto retrievable satellites to study space breeding and the differences between space-bred crops and traditional produce.

On September 9, 2006, China launched its first seed-breeding satellite, "Shijian-8," which was loaded with more than 2,000 biological samples and seeds.

In late September, all the samples and seeds were retrieved and were distributed to 138 Chinese research organizations for further study and test planting.

By 2008-2010, all the seeds are expected to be localized through several generations of planting. By that time, they should be ready for large-scale planting.

From 2010-2013, the space-bred crops will undergo a quality appraisal by the national crop quality jury. The group will compare the space-bred crops with normal crops before allowing the new crops on the market.

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