Cover News Reporter Qin Yi Photo Report
In 1907, in the Minjiang River valley of Sichuan, the famous botanist Henry Wilson first discovered the blue snowflakes of the Minjiang River here. Following in Wilson's footsteps, the seeds of Minjiang blue snowflakes bloom in a foreign land. Kew Gardens, the world-famous Royal Botanic Garden, is still present today.
In 2024, at the Chengdu World Horticultural Fair, in the Sichuan Flower Independent Innovation Park at the Pidu branch, a few small blue-purple flowers attracted pedestrians. "What kind of flower is this?" asked a florist, curious. "It's called Blue Horn Pillar, and it's a new variety of Sichuan flower. Gao Suping on the side replied.
In the Sichuan Flower Independent Innovation Park, the exquisite blue horn pillar has bloomed
Blue horn column, a new variety of Sichuan flower, was bred by a team led by Gao Suping, a professor at the College of Landscape Architecture of Sichuan Agricultural University, to overcome difficulties for 6 years. After more than a century of wandering and wandering between China and the West, this "Smurf" has returned to its homeland and bloomed at the Chengdu World Horticultural Fair.
It took 6 years to overcome difficulties
She brought the "Smurfs" from the Minshan River Valley at an altitude of 1,500 meters to the Chengdu Plain
In 2009, when Gao Suping saw the Minjiang blue snowflake for the first time, she was shocked by its beauty, "This kind of blue is rarely seen in nature." It was also at that time that Gao Suping learned that this little blue flower came from the Minshan countryside in Sichuan.
"This little blue 'flower of stars' should bloom on the land of the motherland!" As a scholar in the field of landscape architecture, she is well aware of the responsibility and mission on her shoulders. Since 2016, Gao Suping has led the team to overcome this difficulty.
But it was not easy to breed a new variety, so Gao Suping and her team began to go deep into the Minjiang River valley to collect seeds from the Blue Horn Pillar. However, the long adventure has only just begun.
Gao Suping and the blue corner column (photo provided by the interviewee)
The wild Minjiang blue snowflakes grow at an altitude of 1,500 meters above sea level, and come to the low-altitude Chengdu Plain, under different climatic conditions, it also brings a certain test, can it survive?
The process from collection to transplanting and domestication and then selecting the best plants for vegetative propagation took three years. Through vegetative propagation, expanding the sample, observing and selecting, a stable variety was finally obtained. And by this time, another three years had passed.
From the blue horn pillar to more new varieties of Sichuan flowers
More than 20 kinds of Sichuan flowers bloomed in the Pidu branch venue
Fortunately, after a long period of dedication, Gao Suping and her team reaped joy. Compared with the blue snowflake, the blue horn column has better cold resistance and longer flowering period, which lasts from May to November, and the flowers are large and concentrated, and the ornamental is better. In 2022, after the declaration of the new variety, the blue horn pillar has an official "ID card", and Gao Suping also made this new Sichuan flower variety used in parks, municipalities and homes in Chengdu and surrounding cities through authorized cooperation with enterprises.
At present, there are still a few days before the flowering period of the blue horn pillar, but when the reporter visited the Sichuan Flower Independent Innovation Park, he found that there should be a "Smurf" blooming here - this is the new variety of Sichuan flower "Linglong Blue Horn Pillar". As the name suggests, this new variety is derived from the blue horn pillar, but is lower in the shrubs. At the same time, there is also a big blue corner pillar at the scene. Compared with the blue corner column, the performance of these two varieties has been further optimized, and the application process is currently underway.
In the Sichuan Flower Independent Innovation Park, there are more than 20 varieties on display, in addition to the blue horn column, the exquisite blue horn column, the big blue horn column, there are also small blue snow, small primrose, hydrangea hydrangea, etc.
The Blue Horn Pillar becomes part of the flower landscape in the park (Photo courtesy of the interviewee)
The direction of selection and breeding highlights practicability
Vowed to break the foreign monopoly on flower varieties
Gao Suping told reporters that about 80 percent of the flower varieties in the domestic market are from abroad. When domestic flower enterprises introduce flower varieties from overseas, they need to pay a large amount of variety rights fees, which will greatly reduce the overall profit margin of flower production, which is not conducive to the long-term and healthy development of the mainland flower industry.
The western Sichuan region is known as the "garden of western China", Sichuan Province is extremely rich in flower resources, there are more than 12,000 species of higher plants in the territory, accounting for 38.7% of the national total, accounting for 4% of the world's total, including more than 5,000 kinds of wild flowers and traditional famous flowers with ornamental value.
"Sichuan's resource endowment allows us to have some natural advantages in the breeding of new varieties of Sichuan flowers. More importantly, it is our responsibility to strengthen the collection, evaluation, cultivation, domestication and promotion of existing varieties and wild plants, and to break the monopoly and pricing power of foreign flower varieties. Lei Ting, a member of the team and director of the office of the Chongzhou Practice Teaching Base of the College of Landscape Architecture of Sichuan Agricultural University, said.
Practicality, this is the direction of Gao Suping's team to breed new varieties of Sichuan flowers. "As far as the blue horn column is concerned, it can be used for flower landscaping, flower landscaping, and can also be used to create rural leisure agricultural landscapes. At the same time, it can also be used as a raw material for pharmaceutical development. Yang Lijuan, a member of the team and a lecturer at Sichuan Agricultural University, said. Combined with the current market demand, the breeding direction of new Sichuan flower varieties of Gao Suping's team aims at medicinal use, carbon sequestration, home gardening, etc.
The breeding and promotion of new flower varieties not only requires the strength of scientific research, but also the joint efforts of many parties. "It is necessary to open up the industrial chain, including the upstream (R&D end) biological resources collection, introduction and domestication, and new variety cultivation; midstream (production end) reproduction, cultivation, and management; and downstream (market end) sales, application, and service. ”
At present, the arrival of the Chengdu World Horticultural Fair, so that the blue horn pillar stood on the world stage, as if a time and space flow and reincarnation, after a century of changes, the "Smurfs" once again made a stunning appearance - only this time, the initiative is firmly in the hands of Chinese flower breeders.
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