Ping’an Station of Ecological Agriculture was established in 1986, which was affiliated to agriculture research center of northwest institute of plateau biology, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS).
There are 3.47h㎡ cultivated land, automatic meteorological observing station, 300 m3 reservoir, sprinkling irrigation system, a greenhouse of 100 ㎡, 22 single-story houses and 2 story-building of experiment and meeting room, basic experiment equipments for plant breeding, cultivating research works in the station.
The station located in Xiahongzhuang village, Xiaoxia town, Ping’an county, Qinghai province, 27 km to Xining from the station. The station standards for the typical agriculture-livestock industry ecology type between Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and Loess Plateau. It is the only station which targets crop and pasture breeding and improvement, and it is the highest altitude station of plateau agricultural ecology in CAS too. Due to its special location and plateau ecological environment, the station is irreplaceable for its ecological representative characteristic. The pasture and crop breeding works carried out in the station is the main work of knowledge innovation program of CAS.
The area of the station possesses some characteristics, including intense sun radiation, long sunshine duration, low temperature during the early stage of life process, no harmful high temperature during the late life process, obvious day and nights temperature difference, so the station is the ideal place for high-yield crop breeding.
Twenty one cultivars of pasture and spring wheat have been cultivated after the station establishment, including “plateau 602”,“plateau 338”,“plateau 671”,“plateau 314”,“plateau 584”,“plateau 448”,“plateau 142”,“plateau 356”and“plateau 437”.
The“plateau 602”cultivated in 1987 is high-yield, early maturity, stress resistance. It has been planted 20 million acres in Xinjiang, Tibetan, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, and Heilongjiang provinces.
The cultivar increased 588 million kilograms of grain production and 881 million yuan. The breeding of“plateau 602”access to the State Science and Technology Advancement Award, Third Class in 1996, and provincial Science and Technology Advancement Award, First and Second Class in Qinghai and Gansu province.
All the spring wheat varieties above-mentioned resulted socio-economic benefits have gone far beyond the investment of Chinese Academy of Science to Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology. The researchers in the station have successfully developed high-yielding and ultra high-yield cultivation technology of spring wheat, in the theoretical research and demonstration of integrated agricultural high-tech, water-saving agriculture and ecological agriculture, the work gained remarkable achievements.
After the “Ninth Five-Year Plan”, more than 59 core journals in the domestic papers have been published and 5 have been included by SCI, and 4 books have been published. At present, dozens of scientific researchers work in the station every year.
The station also undertake wheat northern propagation test of institute of genetics and developmental biology, CAS, Chengdu institute of biology, CAS, and Chinese Agriculture Academy of Sciences, northwest national spring wheat pilot and production test, and wheat pilot and production test of Qinghai province. Many scientist and leaders from home and abroad visited the station.