"Xiaoyan 81", a novel wheat strain screened out under the chair of LI Zhensheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and expert on wheat breeding, has reported a yield of 565 kg per mu, with a top record at 617 kg. The new strain is fine in quality, with a volumetric weight of 800 grams per liter and a protein content at about 17 percent, or 18.8 percent for top record. Its wet gluten content weighs around 40 percent, or 46 percent at top. In addition to numerous strong features, including high-yield, fine quality, disease resistance, and cold spell resistance, the new species is also of stout stalks resistant to lodging, and well-developed roots for drought resistance and efficient water and nitrogen fertilizer utilization.

Currently the "Xiaoyan 81" is being regionally compared for winter wheat in Hebei, Shandong and Shaan'xi. It is also tested in Henan Province for possible diffusion. During the period from 2004 to 2005, the novel strain has been grown at a scale of thousand-mu over four counties, including Haocheng, Zhaoxian, Luancheng, and Xingtang, in Hebei Province, with a combined growing area of 6,300 mu. In addition, researchers have grown the species in three hundred-mu sites in Dingzhou and Anguo cities, with a combined growing area of 800 mu. The Province has grown the new strain in 7,100 mu on a cumulative basis.