29 December 2020
The Chang'e 5 return capsule hosted also plant seeds and for the 1st time rice seeds. 40 g of those rice seeds which made it to the lunar orbit and returned after 23 days in deep-space have been cultivated at the National Engineering Research Center of Plant Space Breeding of South China Agricultural University. The research centre got the seeds samples handed over on 23 December. Rice is a model organism in genetic research. Using rice as a deep-space payload to study the evolution of species helps to understand hereditary effects in deep-space. It may also produce beneficial mutations that could be applied to rice seed selection and breeding and boost agricultural production.
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