600,000 people relayed to lift China's rice bowl South breeding and breeding torch

600,000 people relayed to lift China's rice bowl to cultivate more than 70% of new crop varieties

Southern breeding has been passed down from generation to generation

Reporter Han Yadong Guan Xiaopu

In autumn, they fly like migratory birds from all over the country; In the spring, with a heavy harvest, they sowed the seeds of hope on the earth.

On the 2022 "First Lesson of School" recently broadcast by CCTV, Xie Huaan, an 82-year-old breeding academician, told the "golden seed dream" that he had struggled for all his life to tell the primary and secondary school students across the country: in order to "let everyone have a bowl of rice" to eat, he chased light and heat to the Hainan Nanfan Base, cultivated high-quality rice seeds, and fought the sky and the earth to fight the rats... Nan fan, a word of special significance in the hearts of breeding experts, is also planted like a seed in the hearts of many children.

Nan fan, short for southern breeding of crop seeds, refers to the breeding experts who Chinese mainland come to the south of the 18th parallel in the autumn and winter every year to engage in scientific research on crop breeding in the coastal areas of Sanya, Lingshui and Ledong. This hot land, like a magnet, attracts generations of scientific researchers who chase the light and pursue their dreams. More than 70, more than 70% of the more than 20,000 new crop varieties bred since the founding of New China have been bred in the south. More than 8,000 scientific and technological personnel from more than 800 agricultural research institutes, colleges and universities, and seed industry institutions have a common title - Nanfan people because of this routine "migration" year after year. They not only held up the solid base of the "Chinese rice bowl", but also erected a monument on the spiritual high ground.

More than 70% of the new crop varieties that have been bred in the country have been cultivated by the Nanfan Base, holding up a solid foundation of "China's rice bowl"

"I grew up hungry since I was a child, and the one I was most impressed by was that my grandmother once wanted to drink a bowl of porridge and couldn't get it, so I understood from a young age how important a bowl of rice is..." In "The First Lesson of School", Academician Xie Huaan's narration brought people's thoughts back to the era of material scarcity.

With only 9 per cent of the world's arable land to feed nearly one-fifth of the world's population, the issue of food has always been a major event on the mainland. In order to feed people, in the 1950s, New China began to build water conservancy, breed good seeds, and make chemical fertilizers. In 1956, breeding expert Wu Shaoqi first proposed the theory of off-site breeding, which opened the prelude to breeding in the south.

"Hybrid rice has been planted all over the country, but few people have noticed that almost all the excellent varieties of rice are bred from Hainan." Speaking of Nan fan, Yuan Longping sighed before he died.

Since 1968, Yuan Longping and his two assistants have gone to Hainan to find wild rice - the hybrid rice three-line matching must have male sterile rice as the basis, and wild rice is the hope of breeding experts. Year after year, Yuan Longping and his assistants silently bowed their heads in the sun, looking for the wild male sterile rice plant that could benefit mankind on the earth.

At 11:00 a.m. on November 23, 1970, this wild rice plant, which has been recorded in history, was discovered by Feng Keshan, an agricultural technician at Sanya Nanhong Farm, and Li Bihu, an assistant to Yuan Longping, at a pond near a railway culvert at Nanhong Farm. It was this wild rice plant, which was later named "Wild Defeat", that opened a breakthrough for hybrid rice research.

Since then, from the success of the hybrid rice three-line matching to the two-line method, and then to the super hybrid rice yield research has repeatedly broken records... Behind the climbing of scientific research peaks, Yuan Longping came to Hainan like a migratory bird every year. He said many times before his death: "Half of the credit for the success of hybrid rice should be attributed to Nanfan." ”

He was not tall, his clothes were ordinary, his dark face was shining brightly, and his rough hands were strong and powerful—this was the impression left by Academician Xie Hua'an. On the "First Lesson of School", Academician Xie's pair of hands that are "rougher than those ploughed" makes people tear up.

Xie Hua'an told reporters that his father named him "Hua'an" in the hope that the Chinese nation would enjoy long-term peace and stability. The experience of starvation when he was a child planted the seed of "grain security and Chinese security" in his heart. After graduating from high school, he did not hesitate to apply for Fujian Longyan Agricultural School. At the end of 1972, the country set off a wave of hybrid rice cooperation, Xie Huaan, as the leader of the Nanfan Leading Group in Sanming District, Fujian Province, a group of 8 people was selected to engage in rice breeding in Hainan.

Coming with a simple desire to feed people, they face far more than technical difficulties. In order to buy a ticket to Haikou, there was a whole overnight queue; I thought that Hainan presented a scene of warblers and birds singing everywhere, but what was ushered in was "three rats and a sack, ten mosquitoes and a dish, three ants making pants belts, and poisonous snakes jumping on the body." A 20-square-meter warehouse full of millet, fertilizer, pesticides and diesel barrels was their first home after arriving at the Nanfan base. There is no running water, no electricity, every day to chop wood to cook, often because of the rain and no firewood to burn fire, often can not eat hot meals... Nevertheless, everyone has no complaints, year after year, rain or shine, "flying" there like migratory birds, day after day, all night.

"It is precisely because of the southern prosperity of Hainan Island that I have achieved my ideal and cultivated Shanyou 63." Xie Hua'an said. From 1986 to 2001, Shanyou 63 became the largest hybrid rice variety in China for 16 consecutive years, with a cumulative promotion area of nearly 1 billion mu and an increase in grain production of more than 70 billion kilograms.

Half a century of hard breeding, the mark of struggle is engraved on the hand, weathered by wind and frost. Perennial wind and sun, rain and water, Xie Huaan fell severe rheumatoid arthritis, but he said: "The best way to maintain yourself is to go to the field." Among the green rice seedlings, Xie Hua'an, who was over eighty years old, bent over, like a full bow.

According to Cao Bing, vice president of Hainan University, not only rice, but also more than 70% of the new varieties of crops that have been bred in the country have been cultivated by the Nanfan base. Since the 1950s, a total of 600,000 people have come to Hainan to carry out scientific research and breeding in the south, building a solid foundation for the "Chinese rice bowl".

"Grasp the Chinese seeds with your own hands" and firmly grasp the agricultural "chips" in your own hands

The country is unstable without agriculture, and agriculture takes planting as the first. Only by grasping the Chinese seeds with their own hands can we stabilize the "Chinese rice bowl" and achieve food security. Seed sources must be independent and controllable, and seed industry science and technology must be self-reliant and self-reliant.

Located in the tropics, with high temperatures all year round, only one to two crops can be planted elsewhere, and two to three seasons can be planted in the southern breeding base. One of its important functions is the "generation" of breeding, that is, the generation that increases the reproduction of seeds in the breeding process. "In other places, when only sons are raised, in Nanfan, grandchildren have already been born." The Nanfan base has become a "breeding paradise" due to its unique conditions, and has also witnessed the unremitting efforts of breeding experts to realize the autonomy and control of seed sources.

In the 1990s, the cotton bollworm disaster broke out year after year, ravaging the whole country, and the whole cotton tree was eaten to the left with hard stalks. With the increased resistance of bollworms, general pesticides have no help. Cotton can hardly be cultivated anymore, and cotton farmers all "talk about insect discoloration" and have to abandon seeds one after another. The textile industry has been hit hard by the shortage of raw materials, and foreign companies have seized the opportunity to occupy the Chinese market.

At that time, the United States Monsanto company had developed Bt insect-resistant cotton, and the mainland had negotiated with the other side several times, but in the end it could not be introduced due to harsh conditions. "One is that the asking price is high, and the other is that the intellectual property issues are exempt from discussion, to put it bluntly, we can only buy, we can't do it." Guo Sandui, the father of China's insect-resistant cotton, recalls.

In the face of the country's worries, the desire of cotton farmers, and the step-by-step pressing of foreign seed industries, there is no second way to go except to develop insect-resistant cotton with independent intellectual property rights. Guo Sandui was ordered to lead the team to start the "conference battle" of anti-insect cotton scientific research. In 1994, the unit price of insect-resistant cotton was successfully developed, making China the second country with independent intellectual property rights of insect-resistant cotton.

Since 1996, in order to speed up breeding, Guo Sandui's team has come to Hainan to carry out southern breeding. In 1998, the bivalent insect-resistant cotton was successfully developed, which effectively solved the problem of resistance of cotton bollworms. Since then, Guo Sandui's team has jointly bred with breeding units, and since 2005, four trilineage insect-resistant cotton varieties have been approved for four consecutive years, which has greatly increased the yield and made the mainland the first country to approve the three-line insect-resistant cotton varieties and use them for production.

"Without the Nanfan base and the concerted efforts of the whole country, there would be no development speed of the transformation and industrialization of insect-resistant cotton in the mainland today." Guo Sandui told reporters.

In recent years, Guo Sandui's team has jointly bred with breeding experts to breed 197 new varieties of insect-resistant cotton, with a cumulative promotion of 560 million mu, reducing the amount of pesticides by 650,000 tons, and driving a new output value of 100 billion yuan. Now, they are making significant progress in herbicide-resistant cotton breeding.

"In a sense, herbicide-resistant cotton has a wider application prospect than insect-resistant cotton." Guo Sandui introduced that grass seeds are scattered with the wind, the harm is very widespread, relying on manual weeding, time-consuming and labor-intensive, using herbicides, and inevitably hurting crops. With the help of technical strength, they began to develop herbicide-resistant cotton, which can better solve the problem of herbicide residues than similar products in the United States. At present, herbicide-resistant cotton has completed the productive test work of safety evaluation, and is declaring a production and application safety certificate, which is expected to make new contributions to reducing grass pests and promoting the development of mainland cotton and related industries.

"While being a farmer, I am engaged in scientific research", I only do one thing in my life and write my thesis on the land of the motherland

"Contact after 5 p.m., this time it's in the field..." When the reporter dialed the phone of corn breeder Cheng Xiangwen, the 86-year-old expert was recording crop traits in the corn field.

He was supposed to be the age when his children and grandchildren were on their knees and enjoying their lives, but he gave all his time to corn. At present, Cheng Xiangwen is committed to breeding high-yield varieties with stronger stress resistance and easy harvest. At about 9 a.m., he picked up his research notebook and led 2 graduate students into the ground. 5 steamed buns, 3 bottles of water, are all meals.

Zhang Zhiteng, a graduate student of Cheng Xiangwen, told reporters that it is more than half a month before the corn harvest and the field identification, and Cheng Lao will take them to the field every day, "Bring some steamed bread and water, and it is normal to work in the field for seven or eight hours." Cheng Xiangwen said: "Corn is a living body, if you want to feel it and understand it, you have to go to the field." ”

"A seed can change a world, and a variety can benefit a people." On the title page of Cheng Xiangwen's notebook, this sentence is always written. He said that he has been working with corn for decades, thinking about corn, and he can't do without corn every day.

In November 1964, 28-year-old Cheng Xiangwen wore cotton pants, square cloth shoes, a cotton pants belt around his waist, and a cloth bag containing more than 50 kilograms of corn seeds on his back, squeezing the train, turning cars, and taking a ship alone, running around for 15 days, and came to the South Breeding Base to breed.

He rented 8 acres of wasteland in the village, and the 4 test fields he reclaimed were in the ravine. In the first year of breeding, there was a major drought, and the production team sent 6 young members to carry water to fight the drought together, and it took 14 days to make 8 acres of corn seedlings return to green. Just after breathing a sigh of relief, a heavy rain flooded all the seedlings in 2 plots. He pulled up his trouser legs again, and the members of the company scooped water from the ground one by one, and rowed them for 7 days in a row, finally saving the corn seedlings. This year, Cheng Xiangwen took the first batch of harvested hybrids back to his hometown for farmers to plant, and the mu yield suddenly increased from more than 100 catties in previous years to 500 or 600 catties. The villagers all said: "What Xiaocheng brought back was the 'golden beans'. ”

"The south is busy and the south is complicated, and it is difficult and annoying." In 1995, one of Cheng Xiangwen's assistants first arrived in Nanfan. "Don't eat dumplings for the New Year, is this called the New Year?" Chinese New Year's Eve day, he bought meat in the afternoon, stuffed in the middle of the night, and made dumplings in the morning of the first day. When the dumplings are cooked, I only see a layer of foam of white flowers floating in the pot, and if you look closely, it turns out to be maggots drilled out of the filling! At that time, Nanfan had not yet been energized, there was no refrigerator, and at a high temperature of nearly 30 ° C, the dumpling filling had deteriorated. Despite the hardships, in Cheng Xiangwen's eyes, this is a "breeding paradise".

There are many rats in Hainan, and the locals have the habit of herding buffalo. In order to take care of the corn, Cheng Xiangwen carried waterproof cattle during the day and took a flashlight to the ground to fight rats at night. In this way, I cared for the corn seedlings 24 hours a day and watched it grow day by day.

Spring and autumn fruits. One point of hard work, one point of harvest. Cheng Xiangwen said: "I have been engaged in breeding work for more than 50 years, suffered some hardships, suffered some tiredness, but God has not lived up to our efforts and efforts. In real terms, the reward is much more than the effort. ”

While being a farmer, he also engaged in scientific research, and he did one thing well in his lifetime, and he traveled from south to north for more than fifty years. The small cheng with green silk has become an old cheng with sideburns dyed. He has successively selected and bred 14 new varieties of high-yield corn that have passed the examination, of which the "Jundan" series has been promoted by more than 300 million mu nationwide. But Cheng Xiangwen's life dictionary does not have the word "retirement", and he continues the life of migratory birds from winter to spring.

"To do scientific research, we must have a pure heart like cotton wool" "Breeders should be like high-quality cotton seeds, with strong adaptability and strong resistance to stress"... For more than 60 years, generations of breeding experts have exerted their wisdom in this hot land, written papers on the land of the motherland, and sent the results to hundreds of millions of peasant families.

"Chuanpai Street" and "Longping Street" lead to "Revitalization Road" in parallel, and promoting the revitalization of the seed industry is the common mission pursuit of several generations of Nanfan people

10 years ago, when Cao Ming, an assistant researcher at the Sanya Agricultural Technology Extension Service Center, graduated from graduate school, there were several roads in front of him: one was to return to his hometown and be elected as a transfer student, the other was to stay in South China Agricultural University to continue to do research, and the third was to go to a company in Shenzhen. But he chose the fourth way - to Go to Nanfan.

Previously, Cao Ming came here with a thesis on banana fertilization technology, but unexpectedly, halfway through the experiment, the banana was infected with blight and was completely destroyed, so he had to change places to restart the stove. Later he learned that the problem was in the soil.

"It's true that there are exceptional light conditions, but the soil conditions are not ideal." Cao Ming explained that the tropical soil in Hainan is not very good, the fertility is not strong enough, coupled with the sun and rain, typhoon erosion, which has a certain impact on breeding.

How to improve the soil? The traditional idea is to apply organic fertilizer, but it is time-consuming and laborious, and it is not the optimal solution. After research, Cao Ming and his team thought of a way to return green manure to the field: using the summer soil free period to plant plants, and then turning them into fertilizer on the spot to replenish organic matter to the soil. After several experiments, they chose Tian Jing.

Cao Ming said that Tian Jing grows fast, sowing seeds in May and June every year, and the plant can grow to 2 meters tall in 2 months. Hainan summer often has strong typhoon weather disturbances, Tian Jing is not only resistant to waterlogging, but also can use water to grow rapidly, plus it is a legume plant, through the rhizobia can convert nitrogen in the air into nitrogen fertilizer in the soil, effectively supplementing fertility.

Drones sow seeds, and large machinery returns to the fields. Planting green manure on one mu of land is equivalent to applying an additional 1 to 2 tons of commercial organic fertilizer. After promotion, the technology has achieved full coverage in the core area of Sanya Nanfan, and was selected as a typical case of national agricultural green development in 2021.

Cold and summer, autumn "planting" and winter "busy", changing is the coming and going of scientific research materials and breeding varieties, and what remains unchanged is the persistence and dedication of scientists. Today's Nanfan, there are many "post-80s" and "post-90s" like Cao Ming, who work diligently, forge ahead, and dedicate their youth and sweat to the development of the modern seed industry and national food security in the mainland.

"Give the best land to Nan fan." In order to ensure the national breeding plan, Hainan Province has set up a special Nanfan Management Bureau to set up a scientific research and breeding protection area, supplemented by high-standard farmland and service infrastructure construction, and scientific researchers "move in with their bags" and have no worries. From having no fixed place to live and finding land every year, to improving infrastructure and guaranteeing land for scientific research, Nanfan's entrepreneurial and innovative environment is not what it used to be.

In June 2020, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the "Overall Plan for the Construction of Hainan Free Trade Port", which pointed out that the advantages of the national southern breeding scientific research and breeding base should be brought into full play, and a global tropical agricultural center and a transit base for the introduction of global animal and plant germplasm resources should be built. In July 2021, the 20th meeting of the Central Committee for Deep Reform stressed that it is necessary to carry out key core technology research on seed sources and solidly promote the construction of innovation bases such as Nanfan Silicon Valley.

Relying on Yazhou Bay Science and Technology City, Nanfan Science and Technology City has accelerated its rise. The naming of the roads in the city also reflects the wishes of generations of Southern Fan people. A "Longping Street" carries the nostalgia and respect of the Nanfan people for Yuan Longping, and a "salary street" means that the breeding cause is passed on from generation to generation and successor. The parallel development of the two roads leads to the "revitalization road" and promotes the revitalization of the seed industry, which is the common mission and pursuit of several generations of Southern Fan people.

Source: China Discipline Inspection and Supervision Daily