In recent years, the use of biodiversity to promote the increase in production and income has become a highlight of the city's agricultural production, of which the planting area of Xinping Desert Sand Grafted Bitter Melon has remained at more than 20,000 mu all year round, and the cumulative demonstration and promotion of perennial rice in the city is more than 90,000 mu. The planting of grafted bitter melon and perennial rice is of great significance to promoting the high-quality development of agriculture, and has laid a solid foundation for increasing agricultural production and income in our city.
Graft bitter melon and perennial rice
The bitter melon after grafting becomes "rich and handsome"
The fiery desert sand dam, leaning on the verdant Ailao Mountain, faces the mosha river that flows south. Every year, more than 20,000 mu of bitter melon here have an output value of hundreds of millions of yuan, and local farmers plant bitter melon to get rid of poverty and get rich, build a house, buy a car...
The bitter melon that brings huge income to the local people is the famous white bitter melon in Yuxi, which is well received by merchants and consumers because of its crisp and tender taste, and was selected into the list of horticultural fruits and vegetables at the 1999 Kunming World Horticultural Exposition.
In the Manle community of Mosha Town, Xinping County, the acquirer acquires bitter melon. Infographic
According to reports, Mosha Town, Xinping County, successfully tried to plant large white bitter melon in 1993, and comprehensively promoted the planting of anti-seasonal bitter melon in 2003. In the past three decades, as a local characteristic variety of Yuxi, the great white bitter gourd has been widely promoted in the hot dam of Mosha Town. By the end of last year, the planting area of bitter melon in the town was 21,557 mu, and the output value was 112.2 million yuan. In 2020, the per capita net income of farmers in the town was as high as 18,891 yuan, higher than the average level of the city and Xinping County.
"The development of the desert sand bitter melon industry has also encountered a crisis, because of the long-term continuous cropping caused serious pests and diseases and variety degradation, almost destroyed this large industry." The two main measures to save the desert bitter melon industry are: one is water and drought rotation, and the other is bitter melon grafting. Yang Wenchang, general secretary of the manle community party branch in Mosha Town, told reporters.
Speaking of the topic of bitter melon grafting, Yang Wenchang said: "The most important thing about bitter melon grafting is to choose rootstock, and generally choose cucurbitaceae plants with similar attributes to bitter melon, such as pumpkin, loofah, watermelon, winter melon, etc. In order to be productive, in 1995 I began to graft bitter melons with black seed pumpkin as rootstock, but it was not ideal, and I continued to explore and try. ”
In order to improve the disease resistance of large white bitter melon, the Bitter Melon Association of Manle Community in Mosha Town has established a test base, and the experiment uses black seed pumpkin, white seed pumpkin, local loofah, large meat loofah, etc. as materials, each grafting 100 bitter melons to observe the survival rate of grafting. 60 plants were transplanted in the field to observe their disease resistance, yield and product quality.
By 2000, bitter melons grafted with loofah as rootstocks were successful. Because loofah and bitter melon belong to the same gourd family, loofah has strong affinity, easy grafting, high survival rate, strong stress resistance, hardiness, heat resistance, and water stain resistance, so it is promoted in a large area of desert sand dams. In recent years, the town's grafting bitter melon promotion planting area has remained at more than 20,000 mu all year round.
Bitter melon seedling grafting Source: Window of Desert Sand
The bitter melon after grafting shows three major characteristics of "rich and handsome":
● First, the yield has increased significantly, the highest yield per mu of bitter melon is only about 5 tons before grafting, and the highest yield per mu after grafting can reach 8 tons to 9 tons.
●The second is that the quality has been greatly improved, the size is large and handsome, the appearance is very good, and the price is increased by about 1 yuan per kilogram.
Third, because of the high yield and good quality, the income of melon farmers has increased significantly, and now the 3967 melon farmers in the 8 village committees of Mosha Town have an income of 28,000 yuan from bitter melon planting.
Therefore, the vegetable farmers in Mosha have become rich by planting bitter melons, and the bitter melons after grafting have naturally won the name of "rich and handsome".
The "leek rice" that was cut and revived wrote a new chapter in rice planting
Since 2016, Yuxi has appeared a kind of rice like leeks to cut a stubble and a long stubble, this rice is scientifically called perennial rice, commonly known as "leek rice", planted once can be harvested continuously for several years.
"Perennial rice is a new rice variety cultivated by Professor Hu Fengyi's team at Yunnan University after 24 years of exploration and research, and is an innovation in rice breeding in China." Yang Jincheng, vice president of the Municipal Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said.
According to Professor Hu Fengyi, the biggest characteristic of perennial rice is that it can grow new seedlings from the underground stems of rice, and there is a growth characteristic of "wildfire burning inexhaustibly, spring wind blowing and growing again". At present, the perennial rice planted in the test field of Menghai Town, Menghai County, Xishuangbanna Prefecture, has been harvested for 6 consecutive years and 12 seasons.
It is understood that Yuxi City was the first to introduce perennial rice in 2016 in Jiasa Town, Xinping County. In 2018, the Natang Villagers Group of the Nansa Village Committee of Lijiang Street in Yuanjiang County concentrated on planting more than 200 mu of perennial rice in succession.
"This kind of perennial rice only needs to be planted once, it can be harvested for two consecutive seasons or harvested for several years through overwintering, during which there is no need to purchase seeds, raise seedlings, plough fields, harrow fields, and plant seedlings, which greatly reduces labor input, reduces the labor intensity of rice farmers, and the yield remains relatively stable, breaking through the traditional rice farming methods and realizing the light and simplified production of rice." Li Songqiang, director of the Rural Industry Development Center of Yuanjiang County, told reporters.
According to reports, since 1997, Hu Fengyi, who was still working at the Institute of Food Crops of yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, began to explore and study perennial rice with colleagues, and after more than 20 years of exploration and research, bred perennial rice varieties, and began field trials in 2016. At present, three perennial rice varieties adapted to planting in different regions have been bred and approved in the province.
As of June this year, Yunnan has 12 prefectures (cities) and 72 counties (cities, districts) to promote the planting of perennial rice, with a planting area of more than 100,000 mu. While perennial rice is popular in Yunnan Province, it has also been introduced and planted by Guangxi, Guizhou, Jiangxi, Hunan and other provinces. So how did Hu Fengyi's team cultivate this perennial rice? Yang Jincheng told reporters: "Perennial rice is selected by cross-breeding of african Changxiong wild rice and local high-quality rice varieties in Yunnan, and its research results rank leading in the world, which is a typical case of agricultural scientists and technicians in our province using wild rice genetic diversity to breed new varieties." ”
It is understood that Changxiong wild rice originated from a wild rice with a very developed underground stem in Africa. Professor Hu Fengyi and his team crossed the locally cultivated high-quality rice seeds in Yunnan with Changxiong wild rice, selected the perennial traits of the offspring, and cultivated a new high-yield and high-quality strain with stable perenniality.
After that, these stable perennial lines were crossed with local high-quality varieties in Yunnan, and the molecular marker-assisted selection breeding technology was used to quickly select high-quality lines with perennial gene loci in the offspring isolated population. Through more than 20 years of research, the genetic code of perenniality of wild rice in Changxiong has been solved, and 9 stable perennial rice varieties (lines) have been successfully selected.
It is understood that in the double-cropping rice area, the underground stems of the rice piles left over after the first stubble harvest of this "leek rice" will regenerate new plants, which can be harvested again that year, and there is no idle period in the middle, but there is a leisure period in December and January of the following year, and there is no need for management.
In yunnan areas below 1400 meters above sea level, perennial rice can safely overwinter, sow once, harvest twice a year, and can be harvested continuously for many years. This kind of "leek rice" is particularly suitable for promotion in the low-heat river valley rice area in the south of our province. Perennial rice planting saves labor and effort, saves grain seeds, saves costs and increases efficiency significantly, and is suitable for planting in the main indica rice producing areas. Planting perennial rice can also reduce the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, which is more ecological and environmentally friendly. Compared with traditional hybrid rice, the yield is flat or slightly increased, but the cost of labor, fertilizer and pesticides can be saved by more than 500 yuan per mu.
From September 17th to 19th this year, the on-site observation and training meeting on the promotion and application of perennial rice in Yuxi City was held in Jiasa Town, Xinping County. According to the announcement of expert production measurement, this year, the city's core demonstration in Jiasa Town 502.6 acres of perennial rice Yunda 107, the first and second quarters of the test results total 1041.5 kg per mu.
"So far, the city has demonstrated and promoted more than 90,000 mu of perennial rice in 8 counties (cities and districts) such as Xinping and Yuanjiang, and perennial rice is of great significance to ensuring food security and promoting high-quality agricultural development in our city, and has shown good prospects for promotion and application in our city." Yang Jincheng said.
Yuxi Daily all-media reporter: Chen Jia
Editor: Han Yajiao
Review: Xu Fengxiang