Work resumed on a wide swathe of saline-alkaline land in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, on Thursday in preparation for rice planting at the end of April.

Local farmers reclaimed 200 hectares of tidal flats in the city's northern Chengyang district. A dozen drones helped spray soil conditioners.

Researchers from a laboratory led by renowned Chinese agricultural scientist Yuan Longping acquired a variety of rice seeds used especially for saline-alkaline land since 2017.

Some seeds will be sown in Qingdao next month and more will be placed on saline-alkaline land across China.

Work resumes on a wide swathe of saline-alkaline land on March 5, 2020 in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province, in a preparation for rice planting in April. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

According to Yuan's team, they plan to grow about 67,000 hectares of saline-alkali tolerant rice across the country this year, including over 666 hectares in Shandong and more than 333 hectares in the Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang Uygur autonomous regions.

Yuan said last year the team developed a rice strain in Shandong's Dongying city that can yield 9 metric tons per hectare on saline-alkaline land.

"Our team plans to grow the strain on over 666 hectares of experimental land this year for further research," said Yuan in a written congratulatory letter to the reclamation in Qingdao.

Zhang Guodong, executive deputy director of the Qingdao Saline-Alkali Tolerant Rice Research and Development Center, said in an earlier interview that the team plans to transform 6.7 million hectares of saline-alkaline land into arable paddy in five to eight years, which is expected to feed 500 million more people if planted as crops.

Drones are utilized to spray soil conditioners on a wide swathe of saline-alkaline land on March 5, 2020 in Qingdao, East China's Shandong province. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

(Video provided by Qingdao Chengyang Convergence Media)