The city of Hohhot – capital city of North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region – is to speed up the establishment of a national system for the preservation and utilization of forage germplasm resources, as well as develop a national grass industry technology innovation center this year.

Forage grasses are introduced and native grasses are used for pasture, animal livestock grazing and to make hay. Meanwhile, germplasms are living genetic resources – such as seeds – maintained for the purpose of plant breeding, preservation and other research.

Hohhot has established three grass seed bases with a total area of 8,500 mu (567 hectares) – becoming the largest forage germplasm resource bank in the country.

It has done so by relying on the Grassland Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Inner Mongolia Academy of Agricultural Sciences and M-Grass Ecology And Environment Group Co – the Chinese-based company involved in seed technology and ecological restoration.

The grass seeds industry is a national strategic and basic industry and provides a core guarantee for national ecological security.

"We store the collected germplasm resources in normal temperature storage, medium-term storage and long-term storage in accordance with working procedures – such as registration, seed cleaning, dehydration and drying, seed testing and sealed packaging – according to the purpose of use and storage period," said Zheng Lina, head of the M-grass Germplasm Resources and Testing Center.

At present, the germplasm resource bank established by M-grass has become the Inner Mongolia Branch of the National Forest and Grass Germplasm Resource Bank and the National Important Wild Plant Germplasm Resource Bank.

In addition, 18 seed industry research institutes and corresponding native plant germplasm resource banks have been established nationwide.