Chinese scientists are harnessing artificial intelligence to speed up rice seed breeding, helping research breakthroughs reach farmers faster.

At the Nanfan seed breeding base in Sanya, south China’s Hainan Province, rice experts are working alongside AI engineers to solve a longstanding challenge: synchronising the flowering time of different rice strains to enable successful hybridisation. Researcher Zhang Guangheng aims to cross indica and japonica varieties for higher quality yields, but their mismatched flowering windows have made pollination difficult.

In the past, dozens of students manually monitored fields for hours each day, yet the data was often insufficient. To improve accuracy, an AI team began photographing rice during its flowering stage and training models to distinguish between open and unopened flowers.

Early drone trials faced technical setbacks, and robots became stuck in muddy paddies. Now, cross-disciplinary teams are refining specialised wheels and control systems ahead of the March flowering season.

“With artificial intelligence, I'm certain we can identify the genes that control flowering time,” Zhang said, confident that smarter breeding will help “breed the future.”

Source: China Central Television