Based on 12-year painstaking efforts, a study team, led by FAN Xingming, a research

fellow with the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, has bred out Yunrui-21, a novel

tropical high oil corn species desirable for growing in the locality, taking advantage of the

combined strength of SSR technology and conventional breeding techniques. Test results

produced by Ministry of Agriculture Grain Quality Control Center show that the corn,

containing a crude fat of 6.06%, crude starch 72.25%, crude protein 7.66%, and lysine

0.31%, is the first domestic high oil corn species up to a high starch criterion. Meanwhile,

the Institute of Crop Germplasm Resources, part of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural

Sciences, has confirmed that the new species is of a strong resistance to major corn

diseases, including leaf blight, gray leaf spot, silk head smut, spike rot, and dwarf mosaic.

The new species has been placed under protection since 2007 as a national new plant

species.

Up to date, the high oil corn has been grown over an area of 1.8182 million mu (1 mu=

0.0667 hectare) on a combined basis, with an increased yield of 118,800 tons, and an

averaged yield of 586.1kg per mu. It has become an effective solution to addressing the

low yield of high oil corn grown in the country, with a direct and indirect output worth RMB

480 million. Experiments in Yunnan Province have shown that the feeds with Yunyou-21 as

a main ingredient produce 33.55% more meat in pigs, compared with conventional corn

feeds. It is a promising corn feed for increasing meat production in the poverty-stricken

areas, and adds more nutrition to the corn consumed by people as a stable food.