National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement was officially established in 1992, and located in Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. Currently, it has a staff of 125 members, including 115 researchers, 7 technicians and 3 administrators, and provides spaces and training for over 1000 graduate students toward both Master and Ph D degrees in biology and crop science.

The research areas of the Laboratory include: (1) Genome structure and evolution of excellent germplasm; (2) Genetic basis and regulation of excellent germplasm traits; (3) Germplasm improvement and breeding technology innovation; and (4) Creation and application of excellent germplasm. The main research crops include rice, rapeseed, cotton, maize, wheat and soybean.

Progresses made in the past years have received international recognition in a number of research fields including: (1) Discovery of Pol cytoplasm male sterility in B. napusthat has been widely used in hybrid breeding programs of B. napusand Cruciferae vegetables in the world; (2) Establishment of first-class platforms for functional genomic studies including T-DNA insertional mutant libraries, genomics, metabolomics, phenomics, and bioinformatic platforms; (3) Deep insights into the genetic and molecular basis of heterosis in rice and rapeseed; (4) Cloning and functional characterization of tens of genes for agronomically important traits toward the goals of GSR (Green Super Rice) development; (5) Success in somatic hybridization between upland cotton and wild cotton; (6) Development of crop varieties by combining conventional breeding with molecular technologies and widely application of the varieties for commercial production (for example, oil-seed rape hybrids have been planted in a total planting area of more than 1 million hectares annually).

The Laboratory has been officially rated "excellent" in the past five consecutive nationwide evaluations (in year 1996, 2001, 2006, 2011 and 2016). In 2022, the laboratory become one of the first batch of national key laboratories (20 in total) to complete reorganization. The Laboratory was awarded 3 State Second Class Award in Natural Sciences, 1 State Special Awards for Advances in Science and Technology, 1 State First Class Awards for Advances in Science and Technology, 2 State Second Class Award in Technological Innovation, 7 State Second Class Awards for Advances in Science and Technology in the past years. A total of about 120 research papers were published, of which 40 papers appear in the international journals such as Science, Nature, Nat Genet, Gene Dev, PNAS, Plant Cell etc, and 30 patents were granted and 15 crop varieties have been registered or released in every year.

Address: National key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

Phone: (+86 27) 87280016

E-mail: croplab@mail.hzau.edu.cn

URL: http://croplab.hzau.edu.cn/