The 8,696 seeds of special varieties of rice and shrimp in Nanxian County, Hunan Province, which traveled in space on the Shenzhou-16 spacecraft, were handed over on the 27th. This batch of seeds was sent to space with the Shenzhou-16 manned spacecraft on May 30, 2023, and returned to the ground with Shenzhou-16 on October 31 last year. The rice seed is a special new variety cultivated by Nanxian County and Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Rice-shrimp rice is a type of specialty rice grown in a rice-shrimp co-cropping model. In this model, rice and crayfish grow together in the same field, forming a circular ecological chain. The whole production process of rice and shrimp is free of pesticide and fertilizer residues, pollution-free and pollution-free, and has the quality advantages of low pesticide residues, good safety, good taste, high nutritional value and outstanding benefits.
In the rice-shrimp co-cropping model, rice and crayfish grow together in the way of shrimp and shrimp. Crayfish forage and inhabit in the rice field, and its activity is conducive to loosening the soil and playing the role of loosening the soil in the rice field; the crayfish can also eat the pests in the field and reduce the damage of pests to rice. At the same time, the paddy field provides a suitable growth environment for crayfish, which helps to improve the quality and yield of crayfish.
At present, Nanxian Rice and Shrimp has been awarded the "China Geographical Indication Certification Trademark" and "Special Gold Award of the 107th Panama-Pacific International Exposition", with a regional public brand value of 23.11 billion yuan (RMB, the same below). In recent years, Nanxian County, located in the hinterland of Dongting Lake, has continued to promote the high-quality development of the whole rice and shrimp industry chain, with the comprehensive output value of the rice and shrimp industry exceeding 16 billion yuan and the regional public brand value reaching 35.56 billion yuan.
This is not the first time that the mainland has carried out space breeding activities, and now we have many crops in our lives that have undergone space breeding, which makes our dining table more abundant. Space breeding actually uses the original mutation characteristics of the organism itself, the living environment of organisms on the earth is relatively stable, and the mutation frequency of the species is relatively limited, which also leads to the relatively stable traits of organisms, and artificial breeding needs to undergo repeated hybridization and other experiments to obtain the corresponding traits.
Space breeding uses the characteristics of high cosmic radiation, microgravity, and high vacuum in space, and cosmic radiation is one of the main factors that stimulate biological variation. Radiation can act on the nucleic acid chain of organisms, so that the nucleic acid synthesis of organisms "error", we all know that the codon of organisms has been determined, and the assembly error of a nucleic acid may cause obvious changes in the protein sequence of the entire gene, expressing different proteins. Using the environmental characteristics of space allows us to obtain a lot of mutant raw materials.
Next, it is the same as traditional breeding, first of all, you have to plant first, and observe which pillar traits have been significantly changed, whether it is the stalk has become stronger, the leaves have become larger, etc., can be used as a raw material for cultivation, for example, the former is more conducive to the lodging resistance of the plant, and the latter may be related to the plant can synthesize more starch, which means increased yield. We can consider cross-breeding them with existing varieties to get the traits we want.
The whole process of space breeding is roughly as follows: send seeds into space→ be baptized in the space environment→ plant to see if new varieties appear→ cross with existing varieties to obtain the desired traits→ inbreeding will fix the selected traits, so that new crop varieties are born. Well, now we can see that sending seeds into space with great effort is really a means to increase our grain production, and it is also an important means to obtain new varieties to enrich the gene pool of existing crops.
China has achieved remarkable results in the field of space breeding, thanks to its independently developed space technology. By carrying cargo such as manned spacecraft and satellites, Chinese breeding experts can send seeds into space and conduct breeding experiments using special environments such as microgravity, high radiation, and high vacuum.
China has become one of the world's largest space breeding countries, and has successfully cultivated many high-quality and high-yield crop varieties through breeding experiments in space. For example, Chinese scientists have successfully bred high-quality wheat varieties such as Jingxin No. 1, Jingxin No. 2, Jingxin No. 3, Jingxin No. 4, Jingxin No. 5, Jingxin No. 6, Jingxin No. 7, Jingxin No. 8, Jingxin No. 9 and Jingxin No. 10 in space breeding, which have increased yields by more than 20% compared to traditional wheat varieties and have better disease resistance and adaptability.
In addition, China has successfully cultivated many other crop varieties in space breeding, such as vegetables, fruits, flowers, etc. These varieties not only have better quality and yield, but also can adapt to different climate and soil conditions, making an important contribution to China's agricultural production and food security. Continuing to use space breeding, it is possible to obtain some kind of "super crop" that will improve yield, nutrition, taste, and more.
In short, China has obvious advantages and achievements in the field of space breeding, which is due to its independent development of space technology. In the future, with the continuous development of China's space technology, it is believed that China will continue to make more innovations and breakthroughs in the field of space breeding. In fact, the country has done a lot of work to increase production, and we may see that some places have been affected by disasters when we see the news, but we will hear the news of increased food production, and the two are not completely contrary to each other.
Nowadays we can use a lot of scientific and technological means, the application of chemical fertilizers to ensure the fertility of the soil, the application of pesticides to control pests and diseases, plus other means, we can plant crops in a more intensive planting way, so that the yield can be increased; through scientific management, the timing of watering and fertilization, etc., may also increase the yield; and then there is scientific and technological means, the use of hybridization and other ways to obtain new varieties, the same can form an increase in yield. Agriculture is a huge discipline, not only with the hard work of farmers, but also with the breeding and other industries are very important.
Seeds are the "chips" of agriculture, and for a country to have its own seed resources, it is essential to ensure food security. The four major grain merchants control the international grain market and manipulate food prices, and if we rely too much on imported seeds, we will face the risk of being "stuck" by others. Therefore, we need to produce enough food independently and master our own seed resources to ensure the food security of the country.
This is particularly true in Africa. Due to industrial backwardness, African countries are unable to carry out large-scale agricultural production and lack fertilizers, pesticides and good seeds. This makes it difficult to use land efficiently in Africa and produces very limited output. Traditional crops are not suitable for African lands, so new cultivation methods and techniques need to be found to tame the wild lands of Africa. Without their own seed resources, African countries would not be able to achieve agricultural self-sufficiency or freedom from dependence on international markets.
Today, our space technology is booming, and we are using this to our advantage to enrich our crop varieties, and more and more space varieties will be on our tables.