China science, technology news summary — June 14

Chinese researchers have revealed that the amount of precipitation previously measured on the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau has been underestimated considerably, and called for the establishment of a new observation system to measure precipitation on the plateau.

Ground-based instrument monitoring is currently believed to be the most important and reliable method for obtaining precipitation information.

However, researchers from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Beijing Normal University have discovered that the “observed” precipitation over the Asian Water Tower has been considerably underestimated in view of observational evidence from three water cycle components, namely, evapotranspiration, runoff and accumulated snow.

WHEAT “CANCER”

A research team from China has employed gene editing technology to improve wheat resistance to stripe rust, an airborne fungal disease described as “cancer” for this crop.

The research team, led by Prof. Wang Xiaojie from Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, in their 18-year-long study found a susceptible gene in wheat, named TaPsIPK1, which confers susceptibility to the stripe rust pathogen, with the results published online in the journal Cell in 2022.

A recent field experiment conducted by the team showed that the stripe rust resistance of the cultivar with edited TaPsIPK1 was enhanced from high susceptibility to medium or high resistance, and also revealed that this could be done without significant difference in yield.

WILD RICE

Chinese researchers have established a platform for the discovery, utilization, and innovation of superior genes from wild rice germplasm, according to the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

The abundant genetic variation harbored by wild rice has provided a reservoir of useful genes for rice breeding. However, the genome of wild rice has not yet been comprehensively assessed.

The research team used Chinese common wild rice Y476, known for its comprehensive resistance, as a carrier to assemble a haplotype-resolved gapless chromosome genome for the first time.