Herbs grown from over 30 kinds of space-traveling seeds are
flourishing in An'guo City, in north China's
Hebei
Province.
Chen Miaozeng, who looks after plants at the Kewei Space Plant
Propagation Base in An'guo City, said plants grown from seeds that
had traveled in space demonstrated obvious ecological advantages
over ordinary plants.
The space plants had larger leaves and stronger stems and were more
resistant to insect pests, he said.
Kewei workers in recent years have put over 30 kinds of herb seeds
into two unmanned spacecraft that orbited the earth and
successfully returned to the earth, including the China-made
"Shenzhou III" spacecraft launched on March 25 this year.
The 24 species of herb seeds carried in the "Shenzhou III"
experienced such environmental changes as zero gravity and a high
vacuum. The seeds were sown and soon began to produce seedlings at
the Kewei base.
A
Kewei executive revealed that this year the base hoped to harvest
and select improved space herb seeds that showed such
characteristics as stable heredity, high efficiency, high quality
and stronger resistance to disease.
An'guo City is one of China's major centers for growing medicinal
herbs which are widely used in traditional Chinese medicine.
(
August 12, 2002)