Plant experiments conducted on board the Shenzhou III spacecraft have been used to improve Chinese agricultural products, a scientist in charge of the programme said.
The unmanned spacecraft which was launched on March 25 and returned to earth on April 1 carried seedlings of grapes, berries and orchids for space experiments, Professor Liu Min said.
Professor Liu, who specialises in genetic engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the experiments showed that the seedlings grew faster and promised higher yields than they would have done on Earth and were also more resistant to germs.
She said space provided an ideal environment to carry out genetic engineering experiments because there were fewer variables to control and plants grew quickly.
Although the experiments were successful, it would take Chinese scientists four to five years to refine their findings before they could produce new agricultural products for the mass market, she said.
According to Professor Liu, cosmetic and medicine manufacturers might be the first to use the research results commercially.
For example, future perfumes could be developed using fragrances extracted from plants grown from seedlings which have been modified based on experiments carried out in space. Likewise, Chinese herbal tea and medicine could also be modified following the same formula.