Developing relationship | Canada hopes to gain breeding information and germplasm from China
MORDEN, Man. — At one time, Chinese scientists would come to North America to gain knowledge and experience from our more advanced agricultural system.
But with massive gains in China’s economy, education and research in recent years, that appears to be changing
However, Chinese scientists still see value in coming to North American crop research centres and Canadian scientists hope the relationship can continue on a more even footing.
“Canada has some of the highest wheat and soybean research in the world,” Ming Chang Zhang, director of the Institute of Crop Science at Shanxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said as he stood amidst the crop plots of the Agriculture Canada research centre in Morden.
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“Canada does a better job than China in some fields.”
Zhang and a delegation of leading Chinese wheat researchers toured Canadian and American crop development centres in July and August, looking for genetic material that could help improve Chinese wheat varieties.
“Some cultivars may be adapted to the northern part of China,” said Zhang.
“Maybe germplasms can be used to develop new cultivars for the southern part of China.”
While Zhang was full of compliments for Canada’s research system, Canadian researchers noted that China now has state-of-the art breeding facilities and systems and Canada is hoping to take advantage of Chinese research and development.
“They are big producers and they have a lot of germplasm and material that we don’t have that they’d be willing to share with us, so there are real advantages for Canada to work with them,” said Bob Conner, a leading Agriculture Canada crop developer.
China is the world’s largest producer of wheat, producing more than 100 million tonnes per year, with major production regions in both a north-eastern prairie-like belt and a central-southern belt that produces softer wheats.
China doesn’t play a big role in the world wheat market because it exports very little, but its wheat consumption is vast and imports from countries like Canada are often brought in to blend with whatever China produces.
Some of the gains in China’s wheat breeding research come from people who formerly helped Canadian and American research develop. A scientist with the Chinese tour, who acted both as a member and as the tour’s interpreter, was Hongjie Li.
Li once worked at the Agriculture Canada Lethbridge station and then at Washington State University.
Li originally worked in North America in order to learn and be able to use cutting-edge techniques and systems, but has now returned to China where crop development is at least as well done.
Li thinks the decades of China-to-Canada research travel is now becoming more balanced, with China-Canada research helping each country boost its wheat varieties using the other’s knowledge and experience.
“China is growing and growing and several people like me have worked here for a while, then gone back and established some relationships, so we can work together for projects go back and forth,” said Li.
