The discipline of Grass Science was granted the master's degree in 2003, the doctoral degree in 2006, and the doctoral degree in the first-level discipline in 2011. It is the only discipline of Grass Science with a doctoral degree in Guangdong Province and even in southern China. In the discipline evaluation organized by the Ministry of Education, we ranked seventh in all Grass Science disciplines nationwide. Based on the tropical and subtropical characteristics, we focus on the economic and social development needs of the country and the local government, and have made remarkable achievements during the establishment and development of Grass Science discipline, and meanwhile formed a 19-member academic team, including 9 high-ranking titles, 14 with a doctorate.
The Grass Science discipline currently consists of four research directions: grass biotechnology, grass germplasm resources and breeding, forage production and processing, and turf and ground cover ornamental plants. Ongoing projects include (1) unraveling the molecular mechanism underlying the resistance of forage and turfgrass and discoveries of stress-resistant genes, such as selection of cold-resistant genes from resistant leguminous alfalfa and stylo, drought-tolerant genes from drought-resistant stylo and bermudagrass, which provides new genes with intellectual property for molecular breeding of resistant forage, turfgrass and crops; (2) Molecular breeding and cell engineering breeding of resistant forage and turfgrass, including the establishment of the regeneration system and transgenic system of forage grass, such as stylo, and warm-season turfgrass, such as bermudagrass, and generation of new forage and turfgrass cultivars using genetic transformation, somatic clonal variation and chemical mutagenesis combined with tissue culture techniques; (3) Functional analysis on important genes of grass species, such as using gene cloning, bioinformatic analysis and RNAi technology to study the key lignin biosynthesis genes of the tropical and subtropical cultivars of elephant grass, which provides candidate genes for breeding new varieties more suitable for feeding, papermaking, combustion power generation, ethanol production or biogas fermentation; (4) Research on nitrogen-fixing bacteria and endophytic bacteria in Poaceae and Leguminosae grasses, such as collecting endophytic nitrogen-fixing bacteria from wild rice and molasses grass, and photosynthetic nitrogen-fixing bacteria from sesbania, and comparing the effects of selective mediums with different carbon, nitrogen sources, vitamins and trace elements; (5) Research on forage planting mode and cultivation management techniques: based on the natural and geographical conditions of southern China and the characteristics of grass production, the project aims to establish high-efficiency planting patterns and cultivation management techniques of forage grass under different conditions, including grass hill slope, coastal land and grassland rotation and forest grass intercropping; (6) Research on forage harvest and storage: the project aims to reveal the silage fermentation characteristics (chemical composition, microbial distribution) and influencing factors of various forages and develop methods to improve silage quality under high temperature and rainy tropical and subtropical environment; (7) Research on forage processing and utilization: the project studies the processing and utilization techniques for different forage species, different animals and different feeding methods, such as stem and leaf separation, grass powder or grass granule processing, leaf protein and active substance extraction, to fulfill the needs of highly diversified forage-fed objects in South China (bovine, sheep, geese, pigs, fish, etc.); (8) Collection, selection, breeding and cultivation of warm-season grasses and ornamental plants; (9) Pest and disease control, turf establishment and management, bedding structure and soilless turf industrialization technology.
Since the “11th Five-Year Plan”, the discipline has undertaken 76 research projects, including 34 national-level projects, such as “973” and science and technology supporting projected of the Ministry of Science and Technology, special key projects for genetically modified organisms of the Ministry of Agriculture, and key and general projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, and 29 provincial and ministerial-level projects, and the total research funding is 24.51 million RMB. A large number of scientific and technological achievements have been made along with the implementation and completion of these projects. Since the “11th Five-Year Plan”, 248 papers have been published, including 82 publications in the SCI journals such as Plant Cell Environment, Plant Biotech J and J Exp Bot, and 30 publications in EI and ISTP journals, and 11 textbooks and monographs were published. A number of research results have been applied in enterprises in and out of Guangdong Province, bringing significant economic and social benefits, 6 first, second and third provincial and ministerial prizes for research achievements, and 14 invention patents (including 9 authorized items), 14 new varieties of pasture and flowers.