On November 19, 2015, at the 7th National Symposium on Genetic Breeding of Wheat, Northwest A & F University’s outstanding alumni, Xu Weigang, member of the NPC Standing Committee, member of Agriculture and Rural Committee of the National People’s Congress and Director of Henan Academy of Agricultural Sciences Institute of Wheat, was hired as NWAFU’s visiting professor. President Sun Qixin awarded the letter of appointment to professor Xu and had an in-depth discussion on the cooperation.

President Sun awarded the letter of appointment to Researcher Xu.

It is reported that Researcher Xu has been the student of Academician Zhao Hongzhang and studied genetic breeding with him. In the early 1990s, Xu began working on the breeding of wheat with high quality and multi-resistance. In 2001, he succeeded in this field and developed a new good quality strong gluten wheat variety - Zhengmai 9023. So far, the variety has been applied to production for 15 years with a cultivated area of over 10 million mu annually and researcher Xu was awarded the 1st prize of 2004 National Scientific and Technological Advancement Award. In recent years, Xu and his research team has developed another new variety with high yield and good quality – Zhengmai 7698, with a yearly harvest area of over 10 million mu in 2015. The new variety is in the process of rapid popularization across Huang-Huai wheat area and has been recommended by Ministry of Agriculture for two consecutive years as a main cultivar of wheat production.
Translated by: Wu Jinchan
Proofread by: Zhang Xiaorong