White rapeseed flower makes its spring debut

A sea of golden rapeseed flowers is a perfect destination for tourists to enjoy spring, but now people have another choice. The sea of white rapeseed flowers in Shanghai are a new variety of rapeseed, "Hubai 1", cultivated by Chinese scientists.

Scientists from the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences produced the new flower variety using two mustard plants.

The name Hubai 1 combines "Hu", the short name of Shanghai, and "bai", namely white, together.

The new blossom retains the agronomic traits, such as maturity, plant height, and yield, of its parents. Not only beautiful, it also has the same economic value.

In fact, promoting white flowering rapeseed may be an impetus to rural development. Besides being a cash crop, it can attract more tourists to and grace rural areas as agriculture is expected to play a bigger role in ecological, economical, cultural and landscaping fields apart from producing food.

Working with the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shanghai Wells, a seed company, is translating the research result, Hubai 1, into real economic benefits by promoting it on a large scale.

Hubai 1 has been sowed on 30 hectares in Shanghai and its surroundings. It may be introduced to parks in Shanghai's suburbs, other parts of China and even foreign countries for viewing, slope protection and other purposes in the future.