Sugar peas with increased tendrils and double yield were created by Chinese scientists

A new Chinese variety of sugar peas has fewer leaves but more tendrils and is resistant to powdery mildew. The developers of the variety are going to promote it on a global scale. Sugar peas are an important legume crop in China with a perennial area of about 1.4 million hectares, accounting for 55.3% of the world's total area. In recent years, there has been an unprecedented demand for new varieties of sugar peas from farmers due to the improvement in people's diet and the fact that peas have a short growing period, are easy to care for and can enrich the soil with nitrogen. The main obstacles to the crop are lodging and infection with powdery mildew. However, for a long time, during the introduction and breeding of pea varieties in China, attention was paid to cultivar improvement in resistance to drought and frost, as well as to root rot (Aphanomyes euteiches). Researchers from the Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Lanzhou University, the Institute of Plant Science of the ...