中国科学家张弥曼获世界杰出女科学家奖

Photo shows pumpkin as big as car tires on display at the 2025 Wuhan Seed Industry Expo held in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, from June 7 to 8, 2025. (People's Daily Online/Guo Tingting, Zhou Tian)

More than 3,000 new crop varieties, technologies, and agricultural equipment from over 500 companies across China were showcased at the 2025 Wuhan Seed Industry Expo held at the northern campus of Wuhan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province, from June 7 to 8.

Spanning 220 mu (about 14.67 hectares), the outdoor exhibition area of the expo was packed with attention-grabbing displays, making it look like a scene straight out of a fantasy novel.

"Space pumpkins" with diameters over 1 meter, grown from seeds exposed to space conditions, rested plumply on the ground. 2-meter-long snake gourds cascaded from trellises like green waterfalls. "Ugly Duckling" pumpkins, bright yellow and toy-like, dangled from vines in cheerful clusters. Most enchanting of all were the elegant "Speckled Swan" gourds, their slender necks and round bellies earning them the title of ballerinas in the gourd world.

"These are all newly developed varieties cultivated through innovative breeding technologies," explained a technician on site. "Each 'space pumpkin' can weigh up to 150 kilograms, and snake gourds yield three times more per mu than regular varieties."

The indoor exhibition area, with five thematic zones centered around the solar terms of Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox, and Winter Solstice as well as China's growing agricultural prowess, was no less impressive.

Highlights of China's cutting-edge agricultural innovations displayed in this area included gene-editing technology to precisely improve rice quality, fully biodegradable plastic mulch that breaks down completely within 90 days, and "plant ark," a scalable automated cultivation system designed to tackle tough agricultural challenges.

Inside Exhibition Hall No. 2, a "plant factory" featured lettuce growing under soft pink LED lighting, with temperature and humidity precisely controlled by a computer-powered system.

"This setup can shorten the growth cycle of vegetables by 40 percent and use only 5 percent of the water required in traditional farming," said a staff member at the exhibition hall.

Blending technology, industry, and interactivity, this seed industry extravaganza was open to the public free of charge, offering citizens a glimpse into the high-tech future of Chinese agriculture.