China's manned spaceship Shenzhou XVI, atop the Long March 2F carrier rocket, blasts off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China's Gobi Desert on May 30, 2023.

The 48,160 seeds of forest trees and a variety of agricultural and forestry microbial strains selected by Beijing Forestry University will be used for space breeding experiments. The project was organized and implemented by China Manned Space Engineering Office(CMSEO).

Mutation breeding in space is a new technology trend. It refers to sending crop seeds or test tube seedlings into space, using the mutagenic effect of the space environment (high vacuum, and cosmic magnetic fields) to mutate the seeds, which are then returned to the ground to cultivate new varieties.

The space breeding experiment is one of the important measures adopted by Beijing Forestry University to focus on the safety of national seed industry and rural revitalization. Researchers from the National Engineering Research Center of Forest Tree Breeding and Ecological Restoration have sent a variety of well-chosen forest biology experimental materials into space, including eucalyptus, raspberry, grape, pear, wolfberry, acer, atropha, platycodon, caryopteris plant, agricultural and forestry microbial strains, human intestinal functional bacteria, etc., and carried out space breeding in weightlessness and radiation environment.

In the future, the scientific research team of  BFU will conduct in-depth analysis and research on the biological materials returned from space. Through tissue culture, screening, and character evaluation in the laboratory, the growth morphology, growth rate, and other indicators of seeds treated by space radiation and normal seeds will be compared to construct the germplasm population of space breeding, and to select plants with excellent characteristics for future research.

In recent years, BFU has been committed to the development of aerospace breeding. A number of tree species such as robinia pseudoacacia, pentagon maple, ginkgo biloba, hybrid sweetgum, koelreuteria, pomegranate, Mongolian caryopteris, clematis shrubby and sea buckthorn, selected and developed by scientific researchers of BFU, have been sent into space, and new varieties such as "Hangthorn No. 4" were cultivated through selection and breeding of experimental seeds. Compared with traditional breeding, space breeding is of high mutagenesis frequency, wide variation extent, short breeding period and stability, which is conducive to the  breeding of new varieties with better characters, so as to promote the development of forest tree breeding.

It was reported that CMSEO  posts the announcement on its website (http://www.cmse.gov.cn/kjkx/htyzdz/) on March 23, 2023 in public for space breeding experiment projects, which were accreditated, selected, approved and undertaken by CMSEO.