China: Kingdom of Tobacco Builds World Tobacco Varieties Park

Source from:  TobaccoChina Online 08/22/2011

Southwest China's Yunnan Province - the largest tobacco-producing region in China known as the kingdom of tobacco - has recently completed the construction of a World Tobacco Varieties Park designed to focally exhibit different varieties of tobacco and resources of tobacco germplasm from all parts of the world. The exhibits at the park basically cover biological diversity of the world's leading tobacco varieties in promotion and also genetic diversity of tobacco germplasm from all parts of the world. Earlier this year, Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Company started the process of building the World Tobacco Varieties Park at Yunnan Provincial Tobacco Agriculture Research Institute. With the aim of turning itself into a varieties exhibition park, a breeding technology innovation park and a high and new technology integration park, the World Tobacco Varieties Park, covering a total area of 200 mu (13.3 hectares), focally shows 409 samples of tobacco varieties and core tobacco germplasm resources collected from 29 countries in Asia, America, Africa, Europe and Oceania. It establishes platforms for tapping, studying and using fine tobacco varieties and rich tobacco germplasm resources in an in-depth way. Making a use of its rich resources of tobacco varieties and tobacco germplasm available locally, the World Tobacco Varieties Park has established under it a breeding technology innovation base. It has also established under it a tobacco seeds bank, a tobacco germplasm resources bank, a tobacco characters bank and a tobacco molecules fingerprints atlas. Specifically, the tobacco seeds bank has collected seeds of 1,588 tobacco varieties. The tobacco germplasm resources bank has collected 2,054 samples of tobacco germplasm resources. And the tobacco characters bank has established the botanical characters and agronomic characters of 2,034 samples of tobacco germplasm resources, the economic characters of 1,365 samples of tobacco germplasm resources and the leaf tobacco chemical composition of 1,372 samples of tobacco germplasm resources. It also keeps the results of test-smoking and appraisal of 1,055 samples of tobacco germplasm resources. Enditem