As early as the early 1960s, Yuan Longping had a vision of "challenging hunger" against the domestic famine, proposing to develop hybrid rice and increase yields per unit area to overcome famine. From the successful matching of "three lines" hybrid rice in 1974 to the mid-1980s, Hunan Province has promoted a total of 140 million mu of hybrid rice, increased grain production by 7 billion kilograms, equivalent to 1.5 billion yuan, and its major achievements are well-known at home and abroad.
On May 5, 1981, the Invention Selection Committee of the State Science and Technology Commission conducted a serious review of the major invention of indica hybrid rice in accordance with the "Regulations on Invention Awards" issued by the State Council. The selection committee unanimously agreed that the academic value, technical difficulty, economic benefits and international impact of the invention were outstanding. According to Article 7 of the Regulations on Invention Awards, it was submitted to the State Council for approval and decided to award the National Indica Hybrid Rice Scientific Research Cooperation Group Yuan LongpingRen Special Invention Award, and to issue certificates, medals and bonuses of 100,000 yuan.
Yuan Longping at the indica hybrid rice special invention award ceremony
On June 6, 1981, the State Science and Technology Commission and the State Agricultural Commission jointly held an indica hybrid rice special invention award ceremony in Beijing.
At the meeting, Wu Heng, deputy director of the State Science and Technology Commission, read out a congratulatory message from the State Council to the National Indica Hybrid Rice Scientific Research Cooperation Group, as well as a report from the State Science and Technology Commission to the State Council on awarding the Indica Hybrid Rice Special Invention Award.
The congratulatory message of the State Council held that the breeding and promotion of indica-type hybrid rice strongly shows how great economic benefits can be produced once the scientific and technological achievements are applied to production and construction. To develop agricultural production, we must rely on policies and science on the other. It is earnestly hoped that the vast number of agricultural science and technology workers will continue to make unremitting efforts, continue to forge ahead, and make greater contributions to the development of China's agricultural production. At the award ceremony, Yuan Longping received the award on behalf of all the scientific and technological personnel engaged in hybrid rice research.
Fang Yi delivered a long speech at the conference. He said: The successful cultivation of indica hybrid rice has enriched the theory and practice of rice genetic breeding, and is far ahead in the world, winning honors for China. Scientists from more than a dozen countries such as the United States, Japan, India, Italy, and the Soviet Union have been carrying out research on hybrid rice for more than ten years, but they are still in the experimental stage, and we are in the forefront.
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The successful cultivation of indica hybrid rice is a victory for great socialist cooperation. In 1964, Comrade Yuan Longping first began the study of hybrid rice. In the winter of 1970, Comrade Yuan Longping went through hardships and discovered male sterile plants of wild rice, and cooperated with more than a dozen units in sister provinces and cities. Regardless of their personal fame and fortune, they contribute their hard-won achievements to the scientific cause of the motherland, and teach technology and provide materials to cooperative units. After a short period of 3 years, in 1973, a number of maintenance lines and recovery lines were bred in various places, realizing the "three lines" support and creating conditions for hybrid rice to be used for production. In 1974, the trial planting began, and the planting area was expanded year by year, reaching more than 80 million mu by 1980. ...... Thousands of scientific and technological personnel are involved in the work. It is precisely because of this great socialist cooperation that we have won the high speed of scientific research work, the high speed of popularization results, and the high speed of agricultural science and technology work serving agricultural production. The success of this major invention embodies the superiority of the socialist system, shows the good study style and noble character of agricultural scientific and technological personnel, and shows the great strength of unity and cooperation. Today's congress is the first time since the founding of the People's Republic of China that the Grand Invention Award has been awarded. China's first special invention award was awarded to agricultural inventions, which shows that China's agricultural science and technology has a solid foundation and has made outstanding contributions, and also shows that agricultural science and technology have great potential. Yuan Longping said at the award ceremony that it is necessary to continue to be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and impetuosity, and take honor as a driving force to climb new peaks. He said that although hybrid rice has been successfully applied to production, it still has shortcomings and great potential, and it is necessary to continue to make efforts to improve and perfect, especially in the selection and breeding of early rice with strong advantages and late rice with multiple resistance, to explore better sterile cytoplasm sources, to improve the yield of seed production and basic theoretical research, to strive for early results, and to play a greater role in increasing production.
On June 7, 1981, the People's Daily reported the news with a prominent headline and photo on its front page, along with an editorial title titled "The Warrior Who Strives to Climb the Peak of Science and Technology."
However, no matter what achievements have been made, Yuan Longping is still constantly cultivating. In the mid-1980s, in the face of the worldwide famine, Yuan Longping once again germinated a surprising idea, boldly proposing the breeding project of hybrid rice super high yield to solve the problem of hunger on a larger scale.
In 1985, Yuan Longping learned from the International Rice Research Institute that the world was facing a serious crisis of "population expansion, sharp decline in arable land, and food shortage". However, at that time, many people in our country were confused by the phenomenon of "difficulty in selling grain" that appeared in China for a while, and ignored the problem of high rice yield. At this time, Yuan Longping wrote an article entitled "Discussion on The Breeding of Hybrid Rice with Ultra High Yield". The article reads: China is a large country with a population of 1.1 billion, and food is still a very serious problem for our country. With one-seventh of the world's arable land, china feeds one-fifth of the world's population, and increasing food production remains the primary task facing the Chinese. At present, although hybrid rice has been applied to production, it still has broad prospects for development and has great potential for increasing production...
Not long ago, Japan developed an ultra-high yield breeding plan for rice, which requires the breeding of ultra-high product varieties within 15 years to increase the yield of 50% more than the existing varieties. In the face of this new trend of international breeding and the task of doubling China's agricultural output value at the end of the 20th century, we believe that china's hybrid rice breeding, while paying attention to improving quality, must also formulate a research plan for ultra-high yield breeding. In particular, hybrid rice, from the perspective of yield breeding, has great superiority, mainly the use of hybrid advantages, can be the morphological improvement and the improvement of physiological function closely and effectively combined, so that biological yield and economic coefficients have been improved, both can increase the "source", but also expand the "library", which can produce better results than the general morphological breeding. In this paper, Yuan Longping proposed four ways to breed ultra-high-yield combinations, focusing on the cultivation of nuclear hybrids. Yuan Longping believes that the current indica sterile line is also a nuclear hybrid, which is a nuclear hybrid of the cytoplasm of wild rice and the nuclear interaction type of cultivated rice, which shows negative effects such as male sterility and card neck.
Yuan Longping put forward his new idea, according to the principle of materialistic dialectics, everything is divided into two, there must be a negative and a positive, if the nucleus of indica rice is introduced into the japonica cytoplasm with a high degree of evolution, the nuclear hybrid of the japonica indica nucleus is bred, and a positive effect may occur. The offspring of this nucleoplasmic hybrid may have both a high-yielding hybrid advantage and a normal breeding habit, and then there is no longer a need for annual breeding.
According to the requirements of ultra-high yield breeding, Yuan Longping decisively jumped out of the study of nuclear hybrids and explored in a larger research field. In his own words: "Only by adopting new breeding materials and choosing new breeding methods can we have a new breakthrough in production!" ”
Yuan Longping has made some useful explorations of this new idea through breeding practice. However, some signs were seen from some test materials, and no combination was produced that met the production requirements.
This situation made Yuan Longping fall into deep thinking, why is there no nuclear hybrid that produces a positive effect according to the theoretical assumptions? If this nuclear hybrid is produced, its offspring may not only have the advantage of high yielding hybridization, but also may return to normal breeding, then there is no longer a need for annual seed production, which is an urgent demand of the majority of farmers!
Is the idea of nuclear hybrids unscientific? Yuan Longping could not easily deny it. This reminded him of the realization of the "three series" supporting facilities.
The difficult process of "three series" hybrid rice to carry out the "three series" support provides him with inexhaustible spiritual wealth at this time. He thought that his vision of the "three series" of rice was also in line with science, but it was so difficult to turn the idea into reality! The Nanguang viscous sterile materials cultivated in the first 6 years have not found the ideal maintenance line, and it is impossible to achieve the "three lines" matching. Only after the discovery of the magical new material "Wild Failure" did it open a breakthrough, and then it took only 3 years to achieve the "three series" support. This fully proves that a correct understanding often needs to be completed through many iterations from material to spiritual, from spiritual to material, that is, from practice to understanding, from understanding to practice. The production of ultra-high-yielding nucleoplasmic hybrids must also undergo a process of repeated exploration.
In 1987, Yuan Longping published an important paper of landmark significance, "Strategic Assumptions for Hybrid Rice Breeding", proposing three strategic development stages: "utilization of inter-hybrid advantages of trilineageal varieties, utilization of interspecies advantages of two-lineage methods, and utilization of distant hybrid advantages of lineages". In this year, the State Science and Technology Commission listed "hybrid rice breeding between two-lineage and interspecies varieties" and "rice non-fusion reproduction research" as national "863" high-tech topics. Yuan Longping served as the leader of the "863-101-01" special topic and personally presided over the utilization of the advantages of interspecies between the two lines of rice. Yuan Longping also led the establishment of a two-line hybrid rice cooperation group and carried out a nationwide collaborative research. With the courage and rich experience of a scientist, Yuan Longping adjusted the research plan several times, so that the research on two-line hybrid rice could be carried out smoothly.
In 1995, Yuan Longping solemnly announced that the research on two-line hybrid rice was basically successful.
Under the guidance of Yuan Longping's two-line hybrid breeding theory, a series of new varieties such as two-line hybrid sorghum, two-line hybrid rapeseed, two-line hybrid cotton, and two-line hybrid wheat have been successfully studied.
China's crop breeding has shown an unprecedented brilliant situation.
People said with emotion that in the period of confusion or turning of hybrid rice, Yuan Longping was always able to put forward the right ideas, which made his peers suddenly open up and suddenly open up in front of them. Why? Yuan Longping's secretary Xin Yeyun explained:
"This is where Mr. Yuan's courage is outstanding. In the face of difficulties, Mr. Yuan did not flinch, always good at grasping the key, relying on rich practical experience, to break through the difficulties, make theoretical design, and then seek answers in practice. From theory to practice, then to theory, and back to practice, until success, this is the secret of Mr. Yuan's success. ”
Yuan Longping hung a poem written by himself in the study: Qingshan Louwailou outside the mountain, natural exploration is endless.
Success is easy to intoxicate, do not take a hundred feet as the end. This poem expresses Yuan Longping's never-ending determination to explore hybrid rice.
Some people say that Mr. Yuan's clever brain seems to have a huge rice treasure lurking, and the exploitation of this treasure seems endless.
Yuan Longping said: "Human beings themselves are the masterpieces of nature. There are more than 1 trillion cells in the human body. So many cells are not only able to coordinate with each other, but each cell has its own special division of labor, so that the entire human body is in a highly ordered state. The most mysterious thing is our human brain, which makes people feel joys and sorrows, and can also think, understand, imagine, and innovate. Human beings are the higher stage of natural life, so it is the obligation of human beings to push certain low-level life, such as the object of our study, rice, to the higher stage and then to the higher stage! ”
Yes, Yuan Longping is great, not only in his achievements, but also in his continuous exploration. That's never-ending. No matter how difficult it is, as long as you strengthen your will, you can move forward, forward, and then move forward!