In September, the harvest season, the country's 1.918 billion acres of arable land are full of ripe breath.
Many people's imagination of the harvest is still stuck in the artificial breaking of corn, cutting rice, digging sweet potatoes, the real harvest has been completely different from the past.
The harvester not only takes care of ploughing, planting and harvesting on the plains, but also climbs the hilly terraces, so that the farmers on the mountains can get rid of the physical labor of bending down to harvest and sweating like rain. Facility agriculture is becoming more widespread, and vegetables, melons and fruits have become commodities supplied throughout the seasons. The revitalization of the seed industry has filled Chinese's rice bowl with Chinese grain and the table full of Chinese food. The flavor of childhood was slowly recovered, and the pests and diseases that caused farmers to suffer heavy losses when they were children were controlled. Fertilizers and pesticides are gradually decreasing, and food safety rates are constantly improving.
Looking back over the past decade, China's agricultural production methods have undergone earth-shaking changes, and the progress of agricultural science and technology is undoubtedly one of the most important foundations. According to the data released by the National Development and Reform Commission a few days ago, the comprehensive mechanization rate of crop cultivation and harvest in the mainland has exceeded 72%, the national processing and conversion rate of agricultural products has reached 70.6%, and the contribution rate of agricultural scientific and technological progress has reached 61%.
On September 28, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences released ten landmark scientific and technological achievements, and among these achievements, it may be possible to see the footprints left on the earth in the process of China's agricultural modernization.
Drought-resistant and water-suitable planting technology test field. Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Hide grain in technology and unlock the secret of abundant grain production
In October 2020, in Qitai, Xinjiang, in a demonstration field of high yield of corn densely planted, experts organized by the Maize Expert Steering Group of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs conducted a yield test here. The object of yield measurement is a new technology tested by the cultivation and physiological innovation team of the Institute of Crop Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The team is here and has been conducting research and promotion for 12 consecutive years.
The test results broke the previous national high yield record of corn output of 1517.11 kg, reaching 1663.25 kg, and a one-time increase of 146.14 kg. The number of panicles per mu reached 8600, and the grain weight of a single panicle reached 192 grams.
China is a populous country with a rice bowl of 1.4 billion people and relies on the output of arable land, which is the object of eternal pursuit in grain production. Today, the most cutting-edge technology in the field of breeding, non-crop omics and genetics breeding is indispensable.
The mainland's agricultural science and technology started late, but it has developed rapidly in the field of cutting-edge science and technology such as crop omics and genetics, and has caught up with developed countries, entered the first echelon, repeatedly overcome world problems, and promoted the progress of global agricultural science and technology.
In 2018, the scientific research team led by Wan Jianmin, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, found the "selfish gene" of rice for the first time after more than ten years of research. This is also the first time that humans have found the "selfish gene" in plants and discovered the reason for the "sterility of hybrids" in rice hybridization. This lays the foundation for solving the problem of "hybrid sterility" and promoting the hybridization of rice indica and japonica subspecies.
Rice is one of the two major rations, and the increase in rice production is closely related to food security. For example, "Zhongjia Early 17", an early rice variety jointly selected and bred by the Chinese Rice Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Jiaxing Academy of Agricultural Sciences, is the only early rice variety with an annual application of more than 10 million mu in the past 30 years, covering 20% of the early rice area in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the annual application area ranks first in the southern rice area. This variety is high-yield, stress-resistant, and widely adaptable, and the processing quality of rice noodles is excellent, and the cumulative sales of rice flour by processing enterprises exceed 300 million tons.
Super dedicated early rice variety "Nakaga early 17". Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
There are many similar achievements, such as the wheat variety "Zhongmai 578". In the high-yield demonstration field, the average yield per mu reached 841.5 kg, and the soybean variety "Zhongdou 63" refreshed the record of soybean yield in the south, and the theoretical yield per mu reached 336.89 kg.
Grain security in the world, the mainland grain has not only achieved eighteen consecutive abundances, the most important rice and wheat rations, but also achieved 100% autonomy in varieties. The development of breeding science and technology has guaranteed the use of Chinese seeds for grain in China.
Hide grain in the ground and preserve our precious cultivated land
Arable land is the foundation of food production, and China uses less than 9% of the world's land to feed a quarter of the world's population and create a miracle of agricultural production. But at the same time, we must also see that the long-term high-load use of land has also brought heavy pressure to the cultivated land and caused many problems.
There are problems in the degradation of black soil in the northeast, the acidification of red and yellow soil in the south, the shortage of water in the dryland in the north, and the saline and alkali land, facility farmland, and reserve arable land. In fact, the proportion of low- and medium-yielding fields in the mainland is as high as 2/3, and high-quality arable land resources are very scarce.
Improving cultivated land, protecting cultivated land, and improving the quality of cultivated land are long-term topics for agricultural scientists. In Qiyang, Hubei Province, there is a southern red soil experimental station that has been built for 60 years, and experts from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have been passed down from generation to generation, working to improve low- and medium-yield fields and control soil acidification and other issues.
In the southern red soil area, mainland scientists have developed a number of sets of acidification control technology systems. Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
For decades, only on the problems of the southern red land, scientists of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have developed and integrated many technical systems. For example, the integrated comprehensive prevention and control technology of acidification of typical red soil farmland has been promoted and demonstrated in a large area in six southern provinces, so that the pH value of the demonstration soil is increased by 0.2-10 units, and the grain yield is increased by more than 12%. There is also a technical system for improving low-yield paddy soil and improving soil power in the south, and the soil power is upgraded by 1 grade in the demonstration area, and the average yield per mu is increased by more than 100 kg.
On a larger scale, the key technologies for the improvement of a variety of soil organic matter in the main grain-producing areas of the mainland have gradually been established. In the demonstration areas of these technologies, the soil organic matter content has been effectively improved.
Cultivated land is a complex environment, human planting, management, etc., are constantly changing the environment of cultivated land. It is difficult for a single technology to be widely rolled out and to be effective for a long time. To this end, scientists have built a "sky and ground integration" farmland production perception and monitoring system, and installed "sky eyes" for cultivated land resources and agricultural production. Wu Wenbin, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, introduced in a speech that today, agricultural production has entered the 4.0 era, in this era, information has become one of the elements of agricultural production, the Internet, Internet of Things, big data, cloud computing, automation, intelligent robots, etc., more and more involved in agricultural affairs.
A "high-precision digital soil" that took 21 years and integrated 40 years of national soil data may become evidence that agriculture has entered the 4.0 era. "High-precision digital soil" is not only the integration of soil resources, but also the ability to analyze and predict soil changes.
In the Loess Plateau, the Northeast Plain, and the southern water towns, cultivators may only plant year after year, but in Beijing, which is thousands of miles away, they can understand the changes in arable land in these places, and carry out precise measures for zoning and classification of soil resource utilization and environmental control.
The insects snatched up the food and reclaimed the invisible cultivated land
Pests and diseases are the enemy of agricultural production, and there has always been a secret and fierce struggle between humans, crops, diseases and insect pests.
On the mainland, there are more than 1,600 species of pests that occur all year round, including more than 100 that may cause serious harm. If no control is carried out, the loss of food crops will be more than 15%, the loss of cotton will be 20%-25%, and the loss of fruits and vegetables will be more than 25%. The perfect technology and system of disease and pest control has enabled the mainland to recover about 200 billion kilograms of grain loss every year, nearly one-sixth of the total grain output. In other words, the contribution of the mainland's plant protection work in terms of food is equivalent to allowing us to have 300 million mu of invisible arable land.
Science and technology is a weapon for human beings to fight diseases and insect pests. The locusts that have repeatedly caused disasters in history, that is, the East Asian flying locusts, were effectively solved at the beginning of the founding of New China. Today, East Asian locusts still live in nature, but it is no longer possible to cause large-scale disasters.
But new disasters are always emerging. At the end of 2019, the grassland nocturnal moth invaded the mainland, seriously threatening the safe production of corn on the mainland. However, in a short time, the mainland built a real-time monitoring and early warning technology system for grassland night moths, developed key technologies for physical and chemical inducement control, biological control and chemical control, and proposed a technical scheme of "zoning governance and green prevention and control".
"In fact, before the invasion, we began to monitor the path of the spread of the grassland nocturnal moth, established a relevant plan, and after the invasion, established a more perfect detection, early warning, prevention and control system." Wang Zhenying, a researcher at the Institute of Plant Protection of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said.
In 2021, the grassland moth control technology program was selected as a major leading technology by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, and recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to the world.
Over the past few decades, the mainland has made many remarkable achievements. Nowadays, the science and technology in these fields is still progressing, such as the process of fighting cotton bollworm, breeding Bt insect-resistant cotton, breaking the monopoly of foreign anti-insect cotton, and solving the most important insect pest problem in mainland cotton production. In March 2021, the cotton pest control and biosafety innovation team of the Cotton Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences once again innovated the evaluation method of the impact of transgenic insect-resistant cotton on non-target organisms. This method provides a scientific basis for the development of new varieties of insect-resistant cotton.
Bollworms are super pests that harm not only cotton, but also a variety of crops. Similar to the bollworm, there is also a super pest Whitefly, which is the enemy of vegetable production, it will harm more than 600 kinds of plants, and many vegetables are deeply affected. In March 2021, Zhang Youjun's team at the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, after twenty years of research, published a cover article in the journal Cell, explaining the secrets of the wide host adaptability of the whitefly and laying the foundation for the control of whiteflies.
"Eat all" the whiteflies of the plant kingdom. Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
The seed industry breaks through the seed source of "stuck neck"
In the field of grain, the two major ration varieties are 100% autonomous. However, in the fields of livestock, poultry and vegetables, the phenomenon of seed source dependence on imports still exists, especially in some specific breeds, long-term and highly dependent on imports, such as broiler chickens, meat ducks, beef cattle used in processed meat products, etc.
Chicken is the world's largest and China's second largest meat production and consumer goods, and at present, the annual output of mainland white-feathered broilers has reached 6.5 billion, accounting for more than half of all chickens.
It has been more than 40 years since the white-feathered broiler entered the mainland, but in the past, the breeding source was almost entirely imported. At the same time, related breeding research has also been carried out. In December 2021, the three new breeds of white feather broilers independently bred by the mainland, "Shengze 901", "Guangming No. 2" and "Ward 188", passed the national examination, marking the official end of the history of all white feather broiler breeds relying on imports.
Zhao Guiping, a researcher at the Institute of Animal Husbandry of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, who presided over the breeding of "Guangming No. 2" white-feathered broilers, told reporters that the growth rate, meat production rate, and feed-to-weight ratio (feed-to-weight ratio) of white-feathered broilers independently bred by the mainland can be the same as that of international varieties.
In September 2021, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences established the White Feather Broiler Research Center, Wen Jie, deputy director of the Beijing Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said that the goal of the White Feather Broiler Research Center is to support the development of the mainland white feather broiler industry through the combination of production, education and research, and it is expected that by 2025, the domestic breed share will reach 30%, and by 2030, it will reach 50%.
Similar to chicken, the breed of mainland beef cattle has always been dependent on imports. To this end, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has created a large animal whole genome selection molecular breeding technology, and independently bred the mainland's first internationally competitive beef cattle new breed "West China Cattle".
The breeding of Huaxi cattle is almost as long as the development of the mainland beef cattle market. Liu Junya, a researcher at the Institute of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, is one of the leaders of cattle breeding in West China. He told reporters that the breeding of West China cattle began in 1978, and after 43 years of hybrid improvement and continuous breeding, a new breed of specialized beef cattle with consistent body shape, outstanding production performance and stable genetic performance has been formed. It is estimated that the independent seed supply rate of new breeds will reach 60% in 2025, which can break the current situation of heavy dependence on imports of core breeding sources of beef cattle in mainland China.
This breakthrough in the "stuck neck" of the seed source is not only chickens and cattle. In duck breeding, the mainland has bred "Zhongxin White Feather", "Zhongxing Grassland" White Feather Meat Duck and "Z-type Beijing Duck" for roast ducks that have surpassed similar breeds in the world, regaining the right to speak in the market. There are also the world's first meat yak "Ashdan yak" suitable for house feeding, and the world's first fine wool sheep breed "Alpine Merino sheep" that adapts to the alpine cold and drought ecological region.
Find the flavor, what the taste of your childhood was
With the improvement of the level of agricultural modernization, the problem of eating Chinese has long been solved, grain, vegetables, fruits, meat, eggs and milk are greatly enriched, and the era of insufficient food is gone.
A set of data may prove the progress of China's agricultural production. The continent has the largest grain production in the world, producing more than 24% of the world's grain every year; The continent's vegetable production ranks first in the world, producing more than 50% of the world's vegetables every year; The continent has the largest fruit production in the world, producing nearly 50% of the world's fruits every year; Mainland meat production ranks first in the world, producing more than 20% of the world's meat products every year...
However, while the food is extremely rich, many people lament that many things no longer have the taste of childhood, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, rice...
In fact, in the pursuit of high yield, flavor substances were indeed ignored for a time. But with the development of society, breeders are also concerned about the taste of food while paying attention to yield.
Delicious cucumber, solve the "cucumber bitter taste problem". Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Huang Sanwen, a researcher at the Institute of Genomics of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, is one of the teams that pay attention to taste.
Taste or flavor is a very difficult to describe crop trait, and the factors that affect it are very complex, and cannot be determined by one or two compounds or genes. The mapping of the whole genome of tomatoes completed in 2012 makes this research a viable basis.
The study of flavor is long and complex, and it is not only a scientific problem, but also a matter of people's taste. Thereafter, an experiment involving scientists and 170 "tasting experts" began. Scientists performed whole genome sequencing and multi-point multiple phenotypic identification of 400 representative tomato germplasms worldwide, and finally identified more than 200 subjective genetic loci affecting 27 flavor substances by using genome-wide association analysis and linkage analysis.
Research made a key breakthrough in 2017. In the form of a cover report, Science magazine introduced the research results of Chinese and American scientists on the chemical and genetic roadmap of tomato flavor improvement, and the Chinese scientist was Huang Sanwen's team.
The same research is being carried out in the fields of rice, millet, oil crops and so on. In terms of rations, many varieties bred by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have achieved a simultaneous increase in quantity and quality, such as "Zhongmai 895", which is also a wheat variety with high yield and high quality.
A new variety of high temperature resistant wheat "Zhongmai 895". Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Green technology, retaining the traditional gold mountain silver mountain
The development of science and technology is not necessarily contrary to nature. With the progress of society, more and more green technology and eco-friendly technologies have been developed.
In Shouyang, Shanxi, a "Dryland Agriculture Key Field Scientific Observation and Experiment Station" that has been built for 30 years stands quietly on the Loess Plateau. Mei Xurong, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was one of the first scientists to come here, when they rented more than a dozen houses in the village and built a test field in a place that was originally a cattle pen.
In the 1980s, Mei Xurong began to work on dryland agricultural technology. He also remembers that the earliest dryland agricultural technology promoted was straw returning to the field and covering technology, which was promoted in 1988 in Changzhi Tunliu District, Shanxi. After the completion of Shouyang Station, more dryland agricultural technologies have been developed and integrated into a perfect dryland agricultural technology system.
Up to now, these technologies have been widely used in arid areas in the north, including key technologies and equipment for efficient dry-farming and drought-resistant and water-suitable planting.
"Drought-resistant technology is not completely in opposition to nature, but to absorb thousands of years of experience in dryland agriculture on the mainland and adapt to the natural environment of the arid areas in the north as much as possible, such as cultivating drought-resistant varieties, moisturizing and moisture preservation, and improving the utilization rate of precipitation." Mei Xurong introduced, "At present, the utilization rate of water resources in the drylands of the mainland has increased to 68%, and in our test fields, the water resource utilization rate can reach up to 70%, which is far higher than the global average of 50%. ”
These technologies come from traditional dryland experience and use modern technology to adapt to nature. In recent years, organic dryland farming technology has developed rapidly, and in Changzhi, Shanxi, where dryland agricultural technology was first promoted, organic dryland farming has become the main agricultural production method for local development.
Today, ecological development and green development have gradually become the consensus of people, and the same is true for agricultural science and technology. According to reports, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has focused on the tightening of agricultural resource constraints on the mainland and the increasing environmental pollution, and has developed a series of agricultural green production technologies and products. For example, the first plant immune protein biopesticide "Atailin" and easy-degradable slow-release fertilizer in mainland China have been developed, and a technical system of high efficiency and low risk of pesticides and efficient utilization of nutrient resources has been created, so as to reduce the amount of pesticides by more than 20% and the application of chemical fertilizers by more than 10%.
In the past few years, the problem of non-point source pollution of farmland caused by various factors such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides has become increasingly serious. To this end, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has created a national farmland non-point source pollution monitoring and emission reduction technology system, so far, the application area has exceeded 200 million mu, this system alone, it has saved 870,000 tons of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizer refining. The expert team of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has also innovated the key technologies for pollution control and utilization of livestock and poultry waste, with more than 13,000 application enterprises and a reduction of more than 30% of sewage.
Application scenarios of livestock and poultry waste resource utilization technology. Photo courtesy of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Food safety in the world, facing ecology and life and health
The safety of food is closely related to people's life and health, and it is also closely related to ecological security.
In the development of modern agricultural science and technology, ecological security and food safety are also important directions and contents. In addition to eating well and well, we must also eat safely and healthily.
Today, huge logistics, the demand for rapid food testing is getting higher and higher. It is understood that the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has developed a series of pesticide antibodies and rapid detection products, accounting for more than 80% of the total number of similar products. The rapid and intelligent identification technology and system developed by scientists can judge more than 6 kinds of targets at the same time in 5 minutes.
Aflatoxin is one of the most important toxic substances in food and the most toxic and carcinogenic mycotoxin ever discovered. In 2012, Li Peiwu, a researcher at the Institute of Oil Crops of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, led the scientific research team of the Key Laboratory of Biotoxin Detection of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs to successfully solve the technical problems of high-sensitivity, rapid and accurate quantitative detection of aflatoxin, and developed a series of aflatoxin detection instruments and supporting products. Such as milk and other single samples, from sampling to the result of printing the fastest 9 minutes can be completed, half faster than similar foreign products, sensitivity is also higher than foreign countries, breaking the technology monopoly of developed countries. Nowadays, this technology has been widely used in the inspection of various agricultural products and processed products.
Leek maggots are common agricultural pests, or "stubborn diseases" in leek production, which is difficult to control. After 17 years of research and development, the team of Zhang Youjun of the Institute of Vegetables and Flowers of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has found the fatal "weakness" of leek maggots and the key factors restricting its population growth, and developed them into food ductile products. In addition, it is also clear for the first time that high temperature is the key factor inhibiting the growth of leek maggot populations, and taking advantage of the difference in high temperature tolerance between leeks and leeks, the new technology of "sun high temperature coating" to control leek maggots has been invented, and 100% of leek maggots can be killed without the use of any chemical agents.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, in 2021, the pass rate of routine monitoring of the quality and safety of agricultural products in mainland China will be 97.6%, and the development of agricultural science and technology is one of the most critical reasons.
In addition to ensuring the food safety of the entrance, how to protect the health hazards caused by human and livestock and poultry contact is also one of the topics studied by scientists. For example, avian influenza, a zoonotic disease, has caused large-scale public health problems around the world. The Avian Influenza Vaccine R&D Innovation Team of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has taken the lead in developing a highly effective bivalent avian influenza inactivated vaccine in the world, blocking the transmission of the H7N9 virus from animals to humans, and has been promoted and applied more than 70 billion doses since 2017.
Revitalizing the countryside, the laboratory is in the field
Agricultural science and technology is a highly applied field, and countless scientific researchers who have been working in the field for many years have harvested research results on the ground and brought these results back to the field.
Zhang Chengcheng, secretary of the party group of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, introduced that in the process of poverty alleviation to rural revitalization, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has sent more than 700 expert teams and 12,000 scientific and technological personnel, and radiation has driven more than 400,000 poor people to increase their income.
In September 2022, at the seed industry base of Liulin Village, Caijiahui Town, Luliangxing County, Shanxi, a team of experts from the Institute of Crop Science of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, together with many local growers and agricultural product processing practitioners, investigated the growth of miscellaneous grains in the field, and the experts held a "field class" here to solve problems and answer questions for growers.
"Field Classroom" is one of the routine actions of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to help farmers through science and technology. It is understood that only one research institute of the Institute of Science and Technology has established more than 30 large-scale demonstration fields for corn, wheat, rice and other crops in the main grain-producing areas of the country, and has promoted the quality and efficiency of regional grain crops through "field classrooms", and has established 13 "field classrooms" for grain, buckwheat, edible beans and other miscellaneous grain crops in the three regions and three states.
In addition to the "field classroom", a variety of ways to help farmers are also constantly being implemented. Zhang Hesheng introduced that the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has sent many first-class experts to help various places for a long time, and over the years, there have been many experts who have been trusted and praised by the local people.
In addition, in response to the increasing extreme climate and various sudden agricultural disasters, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has also established an all-weather normalized agricultural science and technology service system. Zhang Zhicheng introduced that in the 2021 Henan exceptionally heavy rainstorm, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences sent more than 70 experts from 14 research institutes to the front line to provide disaster resistance technical services; In the autumn flood of northern 2021, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences sent more than 100 experts from 17 research institutes to 69 disaster-stricken counties in 5 provinces to carry out technical services for harvesting and seedling; After the beginning of spring in 2022, 11 science and technology teams and 31 science and technology working groups were sent to the main summer grain producing provinces to carry out special actions to seize the summer grain harvest.
"Summer grain is not harvested, we do not collect the team." Xiao Yonggui, a researcher at the Institute of Cropsy who participated in the special action of the summer grain harvest at that time, said.
In the summer of 2022, after the drought in the south, there are also many teams and scientists who have gone deep into the 10 provinces in the south to provide technical guidance on drought resistance in the fields to preserve every precious grain for the harvest of autumn grain.
Beijing News reporter Zhou Huaizong
Editing by Zhang Shujing proofreading Lucie