Chinese scientists announced Thursday that they have bred rapeseeds with a record high oil content up to 60 percent, which experts said is a "major breakthrough" to increase the country's cooking oil output and farmers' income.

The 20 new rapeseed species, with an oil content of 55 to 60 percent, have been planted on a trial basis in six Chinese localities including Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang since last year, said Prof. Fu Tingdong, a renowned botanist from Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan.

Fu and a group of other scientists attended an academic meeting Thursday in Xi'an, capital of northwestern Shaanxi Province, to evaluate the new seeds, cultivated by researcher Li Dianrong, a renowned hybrid rape specialist based in Xi'an.

The seeds, crossbred from existing oil-rich rapeseed species, contain 12 to 17 percent more oil than the previous generation, said Li.

Lab analysis found two of the seeds, harvested in the northwestern Gansu Province, contained 60 percent oil, he said. "Most of the other seeds contained 55 percent."

The new seeds are expected to raise China's per hectare vegetable oil output by nearly 30 percent, he said.

"That's equivalent to an additional 2 million hectares of rapeseed harvest," Li said.

China relies on import for about 60 percent of all its cooking oil consumption. Forty percent of domestic cooking oil comes from rapeseed while the remaining 60 percent from sesame, soybean and nuts.

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2009)