After 6 years of carefully bred rice, high quality varieties were finally obtained.

One kilogram of rice sold at a high price of HK $188. The reporter learned from the summary meeting of agricultural and forestry crop breeding in the province yesterday that this is the record set by Ezhong No. 5 rice cultivated in our province.

The No. 5 rice in Ezhong is the crystallization of the selection and breeding of scientific and technological personnel in our province for 6 years. According to reports, he Shengqiu of the Rural Science and Technology Department of the Provincial Science and Technology Department felt that the rice was very delicious when he visited abroad in 1998, so he brought back 107 rice and handed them over to Chen Yiyi, a researcher at the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Chen Yiyi, like a treasure, took 100 rice to Hainan breeding base for breeding in November of that year.

In April of the following year, a hundred grains of rice turned into a few jin of seeds. Chen Yiyi and other experts planted these grains in the experimental fields in Wuchang. The grain seed produces many variants that are different from the original varieties. From these mutants, experts screened out those that met the requirements of breeding, selected and bred repeatedly, and finally cultivated Ezhong 5, which was very different from the original variety. Ezhong No. 5 tastes fragrant and soft and surpasses Thai fragrant rice in some indexes.

Hubei week in Hong Kong in 2005, Hubei No. 5 rice, selected by Hubei Jingshan Guobao Qiaomi Company, sold at a sky-high price of HK $188 per kilogram at an exhibition in Hong Kong. Last year, the breeding and industrialization development of Hubei No. 5 won the first prize of the Science and Technology Progress Award in our province.