Source: People's Daily
The textbook "Grassland Studies" compiled by Ren Jizhou.
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In the 1950s, Ren Jizhou (fourth from right) led students to intern in the grasslands.
In 1980, Ren Jizhou lectured in Xining.
Biography
Ren Jizhou, born in 1924, a native of Shandong Plain, was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 1995. As the first academician in the field of grassland science in China, Ren Jizhou has been rooted in the northwest for 70 years, adhering to scientific research and teaching in the field of grassland science, and is one of the founders of grassland science in China.
In him, there are a number of "firsts": developed China's first generation of grassland cutting machine - swallowtail plough, created the first grassland department of China's higher agricultural colleges, presided over the formulation of China's first national grassland undergraduate major unified teaching plan, and became China's first grassland doctoral supervisor...
"Every day I feel like I don't have enough time, and I want to have more light and heat." Although he is 97 years old, Ren Jizhou said that the road to grassland science research is long and cannot stop.
Ren Jizhou is one of the founders of grassland science in China. In 1950, he and his wife went to Gansu from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, and for 71 years took root in the northwest and engaged in teaching and scientific research related to grassland industry.
Serve the country scientifically and devote himself to pasture in order to change the national dietary structure
"I've been to 5 secondary schools, most of them for no more than half a year." Ren Jizhou said that when he was in primary and secondary school, he went to Lu'echuan and Chongqing and other places. At that time, the reading conditions were very difficult, and even the textbooks were used backwards, "after reading in the upper grades, they were passed on to the lower grades."
At that time, Ren Jizhou was frail and sickly, and most of the teenagers around him were like this. The malnutrition and yellow muscles of his starving compatriots made him secretly determined to apply for the animal husbandry profession: to change the dietary structure of the Chinese people and make the Chinese people stronger.
After graduating from university in 1948, Ren Jizhou received an invitation from Sheng Tongsheng, a famous veterinarian in China, and was hired by Lanzhou National Veterinary College. Mr. Sheng also believes that the Chinese people are weak and determined to change the national food structure. This coincides with my thinking. Ren Jizhou said.
Through the arrangement of the school, Ren Jizhou stayed in Nanjing as an assistant professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine to study pasture with Professor Wang Dong, the founder of China's grassland science. In 1950, Ren Jizhou left Nanjing for Lanzhou. "Establish a heart for heaven and earth, and establish a destiny for the people; live with cattle and sheep, and swim with deer." Before leaving, Wang Dong gave such a gift, encouraging him to work solidly, be a down-to-earth person, and make a career.
This was destined to be a difficult journey: at that time, there was no train from Xi'an to Lanzhou, and it took Ren Jizhou 21 days to arrive by taking dirt roads and sleeping on earth kang. After arriving in Lanzhou, he immediately began to investigate, spending a year traveling all over Gansu to make a preliminary investigation of the grassland conditions in the province.
"Gansu has a rich variety of ecological types, spanning the Yangtze River Basin, the Yellow River Basin, and the desert areas of the inland river basin. From wet to arid, from low to high altitudes, there are many types of grassland here, and I can't let go of this treasure. "He took root in Gansu and immersed himself in the study of grassland science. In 1954, Ren Jizhou's "Investigation Report on the Grassland of Huangcheng Beach and Damaya Camp" was published, which was the first grassland survey monograph in China.
Overnight on the plateau, the first alpine grassland positioning test station was established
In order to carry out in-depth research on grassland positioning, it is necessary to establish experimental stations.
In 1954, Ren Jizhou began fixed-point observations at Mayinggou, 3,000 meters above sea level in Gansu's Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the "laboratory" was two tents. The nights in the mountains are cold, freezing in June, and the distilled water bottles needed for the experiment are often frozen. In order to protect the bottle, Ren Jizhou and others often hold the bottle in the bed to sleep. There was always a cool air under the marching bed, and later he simply laid shrubs on the ground, and then laid grass on the shrubs.
This is the first alpine grassland positioning test station in China. "Hear the wolf howling in the night and spread the wilderness, and in the morning watch the bear trail around the tent room." Ren Jizhou once recorded the situation in that year. Two years later, only a few houses were built at the Mayinggou Test Station.
At the beginning of the construction of the station, Ren Jizhou taught in Lanzhou for the first 3 days of each week, and worked at the experimental station for the next 4 days. From the railway station to Mayinggou, the mountain road is winding and rugged, and the river is cold and bone-chilling. In order not to delay the class time, he had to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to catch the train. It was under such difficult conditions that Ren Jizhou took the lead in carrying out grassland improvement research in the country.
Through field observation, he found that the grasslands of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were densely grass felt soil with grass roots, impervious and airtight, and the grass did not grow well; next to some rat holes, the grass was very lush. So he began experimenting with scratching the turf. With the help of the department engaged in agricultural machinery research and development at that time, the dovetail plow was successfully developed. Without turning the soil, only scratching the turf and not destroying the grassland, the dovetail plow can increase the ventilation and water permeability effect, and the original grass that is only two or three inches high can grow to about half a meter, and the yield increases exponentially. At present, cutting through the turf has become one of the conventional methods for large-scale improvement of grasslands in Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Tibet, Gansu, Qinghai and other provinces in China.
In 1973, the academic collective led by Ren Jizhou also proposed an indicator to evaluate the production capacity of grasslands- livestock product units. The introduction of this indicator system ended the history of different livestock products in various countries and regions, and was later used by international authoritative organizations to uniformly assess the production capacity of the world's grasslands.
Compile teaching materials and adhere to the organic combination of grass industry scientific research and teaching
In 1951, Lanzhou Veterinary College was renamed Northwest College of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine; in 1958, the school moved from Lanzhou to Huangyang Town, Wuwei, and merged with the Gansu Agricultural College that was under construction to form Gansu Agricultural University.
Since teaching in 1950, Ren Jizhou has never left the teaching of grassland science. He participated in almost every stage of the development of grassland science education in China, and cultivated most of the talents in the early grassland science community in China.
Always adhere to the organic combination of grassland scientific research and teaching work, Ren Jizhou with profound scientific research accumulation, into the grassland professional teaching; and through undergraduate and graduate teaching to systematize scientific research results, put forward a new theoretical system, guide the traditional curriculum innovation and new curriculum creation. On the basis of a solid investigation of grassland science, the textbook "Grassland Studies" compiled by Ren Jizhou has become the first grassland science textbook in China's colleges and universities.
"In 1972, I went to Gansu Agricultural University to study, and Mr. Ren's first class was not to teach specific professional knowledge, but to talk about what grassland science is for and what is the use of learning, which is roughly equivalent to the current professional introduction. His lectures are lively and interesting, and people can strongly feel the profound cultural heritage of grassland science. Professor Nan Zhibiao, a student of Ren Jizhou and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, recalled. When he graduated, Ren Jizhou gave Nan Zhibiao 3 requirements: learn philosophy, learn English, and make good use of time. These 3 requirements have always inspired Nan Zhibiao, who eventually became the second academician in the field of grassland science in China.
In 1964, at the initiative of Ren Jizhou, the Department of Animal Husbandry of Gansu Agricultural University founded the grassland major, which later independently developed into the first grassland department of China's agricultural colleges; in 1977, he presided over the formulation of China's first national grassland undergraduate major unified teaching plan focusing on grassland survey and planning, grassland cultivation and other professional courses; in 1983 and 1991, he led the formulation or revision of the "Postgraduate Training Program for Master's Degree in Grassland Science". The requirements for the training of postgraduate students pursuing doctoral degrees in grassland science", which has played an important role in standardizing the training of grassland science students in China and improving the overall quality of training.
Sticking to the northwest, the 90-year-old still insists on teaching in the classroom
In 1985, a 5,000-acre pasture in Linze County, Gansu Province, was unmanaged due to aging and heavy burdens. After communicating with the local area, Ren Jizhou established a desert grassland experimental station to plant pasture grass and carry out related research.
Drawing on the concept of physics system coupling, Ren Jizhou first proposed the theory of agricultural system coupling and system contradiction in the process of research, pointing out that the system contradiction between different subsystems in grassland agriculture is the fundamental cause of grassland degradation in China, and the coupling between different subsystems and the coupling of grassland agricultural system extension to planting and forestry systems are the fundamental ways to curb grassland degradation, improve grassland production capacity, and achieve sustainable development. This was supported by the National Science Foundation of China, and the application of this theory realized the coupling of the mountain (Qilian Mountain) - oasis (Linze) - desert (northern desert) system, and the production capacity of the test area was increased by 2.5 times.
Ren Jizhou led the academic team to carry out in-depth research on grassland agro-ecosystems on the Loess Plateau, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the area along the beach, and gradually formed a theoretical system of grassland agro-ecosystem science. In 2009, lanzhou university grassland science discipline design and talent training system construction won the national teaching achievement award.
In 1995, Ren Jizhou was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, which is also the first academician in the field of grassland science in China. Some regions in China and foreign universities and scientific research institutions have issued invitations to him, but they have all been rejected by him: "My Grassland Ecology Research Institute is in Lanzhou, and I will not go anywhere." ”
In 2002, he served as honorary dean and doctoral supervisor of the College of Grassland Agricultural Science and Technology of Lanzhou University. In 2004, at the age of 80, Ren Jizhou was still editing the History of the Development of China's Agricultural System and the Compilation of Historical Materials on Chinese Agricultural Ethics. In the autumn of 2014, after years of preparation, the courses "History of Agricultural System Development" and "Agricultural Ethics" were opened at Lanzhou University. In the first lesson of "Agricultural Ethics", the 90-year-old Ren Jizhou was quick-witted and taught on a standing basis for an hour. After that, he actively organized the compilation and publication of "Introduction to Chinese Agricultural Ethics".
Due to his outstanding contributions, Ren Jizhou won the honor of "Three Rural Areas" Model Figure on the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of New China and the "Most Beautiful Strivers" for the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of New China.