College of Agronomy

As one of the oldest colleges in the Northwest A&F University, the College of Agronomy started its undergraduate programs in 1936 and graduate programs in 1960.

The College of Agronomy includes three departments, naming Department of Agronomy, Department of Plant Science and Technology and Department of Seed Science, offering three undergraduate programs, which are Agronomy, Plant Science and Technology, and Seed Science and Technology. It also offers PhD programs and postdoctoral positions in different research areas under the first-level discipline --Crop Science. Among all the disciplines it has, the Crop Genetics and Breeding is a national priority (cultivating) one, and the Crop Cultivation and Farming System is a priority discipline in Shaanxi province.

With a mission of ensuring the nation’s food security and progressing the agricultural development in arid areas, the College of Agronomy, rooting in the arid areas in the northwest part but never ignoring the nation’s main grain-producing areas, focuses on the genetic breeding, the genetic resources, and theory and technology innovations on wheat, corn, rape and other crops in arid areas. Among all the researches it has made, the researches on wheat genetic breeding has long kept advanced globally, while the dryland farming and minor cereal crops researches has fully meet the world-class standard. We are a world leader in wheat genetics and breeding program development, distant hybridization, chromosome engineering and breeding, as well as male sterility and heterosis utilization. According to the statistics released by the Library Information Research Center of China Agricultural University, the total quantity of ours’ papers (top-10% JCR wheat papers & wheat papers with corresponding authors being the staff of the college) ranked top 1 in the world. In addition, the breeding on wheat variety has long been in the leading position in China, and the released wheat variety "Xinong 979” is currently one of the three dominant in China.

Its researches on dry farming has bright characteristics, which can be shown in the following areas: we are the first to carry out researches on the "Dry Farming Crops’ Rainfall Production Potential”, which have enriched the development of dry farming science theory and practice; recently, the college’s technologies like "stable cropping system in arid land”, "covering in autumn and sowing in spring in arid land”, "rainwater harvesting cultivation system in arid land” were widely practiced in north arid area, building a modern arid farming technique system with distinctive local characterizations. Thanks to these long-term studies and researches, the college now offers the "Dry Agronomy” course and set up a "Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas”.

After a long-term development, we now have five research directions under the discipline of Crop Science, namely Crop Genetic Improvement and Germplasm Innovation, Crop Heterosis, Crop Molecular Biology, Efficient Farming System & Crop Cultivation Technique for Arid Area and Agricultural regional development and sustainable agriculture.

The college now has 16 national, ministerial, provincial and university level science and technological innovation platforms, including the State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Biology for Arid Areas (co-founded), Yangling Agro-biotechnology & Breeding Center, Yangling Branch of China Wheat Improvement Center, Yangling Branch of China Maize Improvement Center, Wheat Breeding Engineering Research Center in Ministry of Education, Key Laboratory of Crop Eco-physiology and Farming System in Northwest Loess Plateau (Ministry of Agriculture), Key Laboratory of Wheat Biology, Genetics and Breeding in Northwest Areas (Ministry of Agriculture), Key Laboratory of Maize Biology, Genetics and Breeding in Northwest Arid Areas (Ministry of Agriculture), Shaanxi Scientific Observation and Experiment Station for Crop Genetic Resources and Germplasm Innovation (Ministry of Agriculture), etc. In addition, it hosts one on-campus and 12 extramural bases for practice education, and two academic journals--Acta Agriculturae Boreali-Occidentalis Sinica and Journal of Triticeae Crops. Furthermore, it is also the adjunct institution of the Shaanxi Society of Crop Sciences and Shaanxi Society of Genetics.

The college conducts scientific innovation and sci-tech popularization focusing on national and regional strategic needs. During the four rotations of wheat varieties in Yellow and Huai River Valleys, four of six dominant varieties were bred by the college staff. In 1950’s, wheat variety, Bima 1 developed by academician Zhao Hongzhang, was planted in the areas up to 90 million mu (six million hectare), ranking the first record in planting area for single variety in China. In 1980’s, a series of Xiaoyan wheat varieties, developed by academician Li Zhensheng, were extended to the area of accumulative total 400 million mu (near to 27 million hectare), which won the first prize of the National Technology Invention. In 1990’s, Shaannong 7859 wheat variety, developed by researcher Nin Kun, won the first prize of State Sci-technological Progress Award. In the research field of distant hybridization and chromosome engineering, the college keeps in the academic frontier. During three rotations of Maize varieties in Shaanxi province, researcher Lin Jizhou, one of earlier agronomists of using single hybrids in Maize breeding, developed >20 Maize hybrids named in the series of Wu and Shaan. Researcher Yu Qibao founded the disease nursery breeding procedure for cotton, which had an important impact on cotton breeding. Recently, well progress was made in wheat hybrid development.

We are active in integrating teaching, cutting-edge research, and regional agricultural production. One of our focuses is therefore the promotion of the varieties examined and approved by the nation and the Shaanxi Province. The notable examples include "Xinong 979” and "Qinyan 211”. As a wheat variety, the former is now being promoted in Shaanxi province and Huang-Huai wheat planting area and has planted in Henan Province alone over 10 million Mu, thus being one of the top three dominant wheat varieties in China. The latter, as a new oilseed rape, is now being promoted in the middle and lower reaches of Changjiang River and has planted in 20 demonstration parks in the Huang-Huai wheat planting area.

We will continue our successful experience in human resource development, in integrating teaching, cutting-edge research and agricultural production, and in discipline-oriented development strategy. We are confident in developing a world class crop science program for agricultural production and regional development in arid areas, by enhancing cross-disciplinary research activities involving crop genetics, biotechnology, information technology, and agricultural engineering and by comprehensively enhancing the traditional preponderant discipline.