The State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetics and Physiology of Jiangsu Province (hereinafter refers as the Construction Site) is evolved from the Key Laboratory of Crop Cultivation Physiology of Jiangsu Province (established in 1993), the Key Laboratory of Plant Functional Genomics of Jiangsu Province (established in 1993), and the Key Laboratory for Plant Functional Genomics of Ministry of Education's ( established in 2003). The Construction Site was officially approved by the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education in 2004. By 2014, it passed the mid-term evaluation and continued to be supported. The Construction Site includes postdoctoral workshop in crop sciences, doctoral education programs in crop cultivation and farming system, crop genetics and breeding, agricultural product safety and environment, plant biotechnology and botany, master education programs crop cultivation and farming system, crop genetics, plant biotechnology, botany, ecology and biophysics. The director of the laboratory is Professor Wang Yulong, and the director of the academic committee is Professor Zhang Hongcheng.

The general goal of the laboratory focuses on the major strategic issues of national food security, adheres to the tenet of “basing on local Jiangsu Province, facing the Yangtze River Delta region and benchmarking the international standard”, upholds the frontier of crop sciences and orientates to agricultural production. The development strategy focuses on major scientific and technical issues concerning the high yield and quality in staple crops, optimizes resource allocation, attracts outstanding innovative talents, and builds a functional research platform. The crop functional genomics, crop variety design theory and new varieties breeding are the main research areas. The response mechanism of crops to environment and regulation methods, the formation mechanism of high-yield and high-quality crops, and the modern production technology are the main research directions. The aim is to create major landmark scientific and technological achievements, which can be widely used in large-scale production, to promote the modernization of crop production in local province and China.

Currently, the Construction Site has 66 research staff, of them, 43 professors and 18 associate professors, including one academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, one national outstanding youth fund, one fellowship of Australian Academy of Science, one national May 1st Labor Medal winner, one national education system model labor, one Ho Liang Ho Lee Award for Agriculture, one national “Million Plan” technology innovation leader, two people in the national and national talents project, two national young and middle-aged experts with outstanding contributions, one national outstanding returned scholars, one national outstanding scientific and technical worker, and two people supported by the New Century Talent Support Program from the Ministry of Education , three winners of the Outstanding Youth Fund of Jiangsu Province, 19 outstanding academic leaders and outstanding young backbone teachers of Jiangsu Province, and 17 people of Jiangsu Province's “333” and “six talent peaks” projects. In the recent three years, 26 talent researchers have been recruited, and 3 of them have been appointed as distinguished professors of Jiangsu Province. At present, the laboratory has two “double-creative teams” in Jiangsu Province, four outstanding scientific and technological innovation teams in Jiangsu Higher Education, two “National Agricultural Research Innovation Teams” from the Ministry of Agriculture, and one in Jiangsu Province’s first “Innovation First Prize” team.

The Construction Site currently undertakes more than 450 national key research and development programs: including the national “863” program, the “973” program, the National Natural Science Foundation, and National R&D Project of Transgenic Crops of Ministry of Science and Technology of China. The total project contract is 315 million yuan. The annual average research funding is more than 65 million yuan. Since 2015, the Construction Site has achieved outstanding outcomes, and made multiple breakthroughs on the mechanisms of yield and quality determination in major crops, efficient utilization of nutrients and water, and precise quantitative cultivation through mechanization and labor input reduction. The Construction Site have earned 14 scientific and technological achievements awards, including the second prize of 2017 National Natural Science Award and the first prize of 2017 Science and Technology of Jiangsu Province. A total of 469 academic papers are published, 212 are SCI indexed. The Construction Site have integrated and applied in extension a number of major super rice high-yield and high-efficiency cultivation technology innovations, with remarkable profit. Because of these achievements, the Construction Site has won two rounds of first prize of Jiangsu Provincial Agricultural Technology Extension Award.

In the past three years, the overall influence of the Construction Site has improved significantly. The rank of the supporting crop science discipline for the Construction Site was evaluated as 9th (9/42) from the previously11th (11/35).  The “Agricultural Sciences” and “Plant and Animal Sciences”, which are the main supporting disciplines of the Construction Site, have entered the top 1% of ESI globally, and the rankings have moved forward by nearly 20%.

Through the financial supports of the central government's special fund for local colleges and special program for the development of crop sciences in Jiangsu Province, the Constuction Site has invested a total of 270 million yuan in construction funds in the past three years to further improve the experimental platform. A series of instruments such as tandem quadrupole LC/MS, laser confocal microscope, stable isotope ratio mass spectrometry, high temperature gel chromatograph, analytical multi-function ion chromatograph and high performance liquid chromatograph were installed. A total of 1817 sets of existing instruments, of which 106 sets of instruments each valued more than 200k RMB, and 76 sets of equipment of more than 100K RMB. The Construction Site has four research platforms, including crop functional genomics, crop molecular breeding, crop physiology and ecology, and modern crop production technology, matching the advanced levels of peers at home and abroad.

The Construction Site adheres to the principle of “openness, mobility, unity and competition”, basing on local Jiangsu Province and open to both domestic and foreign collaborators. Through the Crop Science Priority Discipline Program of the Agricultural College of Yangzhou University, the Construction Site strives to extend cooperation with relevant scientific research institutions at home and abroad. Current established collaborations include laboratories from the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, Hong Kong and other countries (regions) as well as the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the China Agricultural University.

Mailing address: No. 48 Wenhui East Road, Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province, Agricultural College of Yangzhou University.

Zip code: 225009

Contact person and telephone: Wang Yulong, 0514-87979211