Temperatures are expected to continue rising across China, with some regions experiencing record-breaking warmth.
According to the National Meteorological Center, most parts of the country will see mainly sunny or cloudy weather early next week.
Since the beginning of this week, the country has been dominated by clear skies and warming temperatures. This trend is expected to continue over the next four days.
The warmth will peak in areas south of the Yellow River next week, with temperatures widely surpassing 30 degrees Celsius. In parts of south China and east China, temperatures may even reach 35 degrees Celsius. This prolonged and significant warming could lead to rare and record-breaking warmth in the Huanghuai-Jianghuai-Northern Jiangnan Region (areas along and between the Yellow River, Huai River, and the Yangtze River in eastern China).
Over this weekend, in Dingtao District of Heze City, east China's Shandong Province, parks are filled with lush green grass and blooming flowers, as people enjoy the spring atmosphere.
In Changqing District of Jinan City in Shandong, the return of warm weather has brought 12,000 mu (about 800 hectares) of apricot into full bloom, boosting the local flower-viewing economy.
Tourists are seen wandering through apricot gardens, taking photos in traditional Chinese costumes or having picnics under the flowers.
"Today, the weather is extremely good. I can feel a strong atmosphere of the spring. And the photos turn out to be very beautiful," said Wang Xinyi, a tourist.
A strong cold front is expected to affect the country later next week, bringing significant temperature drops and widespread sandy conditions. And the north will experience strong winds and dry conditions.
Temperatures rise across China, breaking records in some areas
A veteran agricultural scientist and deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature, shared his decades-long mission to reduce the country's reliance on food imports and safeguard its food security by developing high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.
Gao Derong, a researcher from the Lixiahe Regional Institute of Agricultural Sciences in east China's Jiangsu Province, detailed his relentless pursuit of better wheat varieties while taking a question at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing "two sessions", a major event in China's political calendar.
He has dedicated more than 30 years to wheat breeding and succeeded in the fight against Fusarium head blight, a serious fungal disease of cereals, including wheat and other small-grain crops, by implanting "disease-resistant genes" inside seeds.
"After 30 years of countless and repeated trials, we finally developed our first Fusarium head blight resistant variety in 2021. It exhibits strong disease resistance and high yield, with a yield of up to 600 kg per mu (0.066 hectare) in a demonstration plot. This means farmers can use fewer pesticides, produce more wheats, and secure a more stable harvest," said Gao.
Addressing the tight rotation schedule in the rice-wheat rotation system in south China, his team developed time-smart varieties like "Yangmai 25," which can be sown as late as December and still achieve a yield of 6,00 kg per mu.
"We have also cultivated a high-quality weak-gluten wheat variety tailored for biscuits and pastries, reversing China's long-standing reliance on imports. These grain varieties, like elite guard teams, help us hold our rice bowl firmly and contribute to securing our food security," Gao said.
As an NPC deputy, Gao extends his research from the lab to the field, gathering farmers' concerns alongside experimental data.
"My duty as a deputy is also written in the fields. 'Can we construct high-standard farmland at an accelerated pace?' 'Can we have more targeted agricultural subsidies?' These are the voices I often heard in the fields, which I carefully recorded like experimental data and transformed into suggestions," he said. Gao said he will continue working to enable the land to yield more grain, help farmers increase their incomes, and contribute to ensuring national food security.
This year's "two sessions," the annual meetings of China's top political advisory body and national legislature, opened in Beijing Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. As the world's second-largest economy embarks on the inaugural year of its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) period, these gatherings will serve both as a review of past achievements, and as a strategic compass guiding the nation's future development.
NPC deputy vows to fortify China's food security through seed innovation
