During the harvest season, in the rice fields of Kaikan Village, Xiaozhan Town, Jinnan District, the rice waves are layered on top of each other, and people sing the trumpets of the straw, awakening the heavy rice ears. Scratching the straw trumpet, originating from the Xiaozhan area of Jinnan District, is a form of folk song that rice farmers have been scratching and weeding in the field for generations, improvising and passing on orally to this day in order to understand the boring drums, and the lyrics sporadically record the history of Xiaozhan rice.
Villagers sing the trumpets
According to historical records, as early as the Song and Liao Dynasties, the Xianshuigu area on the south bank of the Haihe River began to cultivate rice in combination with military defense and border tuntian, and now, people generally regard it as the predecessor of Xiaozhan rice. In 1871, the general of the Huai Army, Zhou Shengchuan, was ordered to lead troops from Machang, Qingxian County, Hebei Province, to Tianjin to garrison the Dagukou Fort, in order to facilitate the march of the troops, in the last year of the Qing Tongzhi, built a direct road between the two places, and set up a post station along the way, today's Xiaozhan Town is where one of the post stations is located, in 1875, Zhou Shengchuan began to cultivate land on a large scale in the relatively open and flat small station area to provide rations for the army. In order to facilitate irrigation, they spent six years excavating the Horse Factory River Reduction River, the North Diversion Sea River, the South Canal in The South, the Bridge and The Gate, the Construction of Water Conservancy, the Small Station as the Center, the Reclamation of More Than 60,000 Mu of Mature Rice Fields, the Yellow River Water Wrapped in Fertile Sediment Rich in Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium and Other Nutrients Poured Down, from the South Canal into the Machang River Reduction River, nourishing the rice fields at the same time, the sediment covered the land, just like a layer of natural fertilizer, greatly improved the soil of this saline and alkali land, with sweet brush salt, alkali into phosphate, constitute a unique high-quality rice growth conditions "The quality of the rice poured out of the Yuhe River is quite good, and one family can smell the aroma of the eight neighbors who stewed rice!" Villagers recalled.
Horse factory to reduce the river
The old gate on the River
"A penny of peach blossom flood in the Royal River, a jade grain fragrance in Shili Village", for a hundred years, sweet and soft sticky small station rice, as a unique taste of the hometown, lingered on the tip of the tongue and heart of the ancestors of the small station people. After the founding of New China, the government vigorously developed the production of small station rice, rice varieties are constantly updated, cultivation technology is gradually improved, rice production is greatly improved, in the mid-1960s, the planting area of small station rice in the southern suburbs of Tianjin was basically stable at 230,000 mu, while supplying surrounding residents, high-quality rice seeds were also transmitted to other rice-growing provinces, which promoted the development of Agriculture in China.
Small station rice
However, the glory of small station rice did not last forever, and in the 1970s, there was a great drought in north China, the upstream rivers were throttled and stored, and the horse factory lost its irrigation capacity, and the rice fields along the coast became drylands, and the rice farmers had to give up rice and plant corn and sorghum instead, with low yields and poor efficiency; in the eighties, factories and enterprises were built around the villages, and the villagers were no longer willing to be as in the past, guarding a piece of farmland that depended on the sky to eat, and chose to work nearby or out. With the increase of factories on both sides of the strait, the Machang River, which once fed 10,000 mu of fertile land, gradually shrank into a dry sewage river, and by the end of the 1990s, the planting area of Xiaozhan rice in Jinnan District was only more than 1,000 mu, and the real Xiaozhan rice was difficult to see in the market.
The seed industry helps the revitalization of small station rice
Every January, the north of China is in the midst of ice and snow, but Sanya, Hainan is a lush greenery, and the rice breeding work in the southern breeding scientific research and breeding base is carried out in an intense and orderly manner. Nanfang refers to a method of breeding materials for summer crops such as rice and cotton from all over the country to the south for propagation and breeding after winter, so as to realize the multigeneration of crops and improve breeding efficiency.
A new generation of breeders
In the 1950s and 1960s, China's agricultural foundation was weak, coupled with the fact that most of the rice varieties planted in the northern region at that time were room temperature japonica rice, with low yields and uneven quality, and the people could only rely on the sky to eat.
Hua Zetian, director of the National Japonica Rice Center, as one of the first batch of college students after the reform and opening up, his first choice for the examination was to major in agronomy, dreaming that one day, the grain we Chinese could be bred by the Chinese and self-sufficient. Hua Zetian's mentor Yang Zhenyu, the founder of hybrid japonica rice in northern China, and Yuan Longping and called Southern Yuan Bei Yang, in the 1960s, in order to cultivate high-quality and high-yield hybrid japonica rice suitable for large-scale planting in the northern region, Yang Zhenyu and a group of breeding experts went to Hainan to carry out breeding work and became the earliest southern breeders.
Hua Zetian was in the field
Cultivating a rice variety, from sowing, hybridization, screening, all the way to disease resistance and drought resistance and other established breeding goals, after the rice generations of growth and breeding, gradually appear and stabilize, often take eight to ten years, the older generation of breeding experts rooted in the soil, perennial in the rice field wind and sun, after tens of thousands of experiments, finally successfully cultivated a high-cohesive stem recovery line, the first breakthrough in the international long-term unsolved hybrid japonica rice technology.
In the 1980s, for the country and the people to cultivate high-quality and high-yield hybrid japonica rice baton, handed over to the hands of Hua Zetian, all year round, rice does not stop, Hua Zetian and the same breeding expert's wife, such as migratory birds moving south, every year on time from the northeast hometown, south breeding, ten years, Hua Zetian led the team, the use of molecular biology, genetics and other principles, constantly try to accumulate over the years of high-quality genes, patented technology to the cultivation of small station rice varieties, In the end, high-quality and productive small station rice varieties such as Tianlongyou 619 were bred.
Tianlongyou 619, as one of the existing four small station rice varieties in Tianjin, is the only hybrid japonica rice that can be planted in Tianjin as a large area of wheat stubble rice, the so-called wheat stubble rice, that is, after the wheat harvest every year, near the rainy season to start planting short-ripening rice, rice seedlings use rainwater to grow rapidly, the growth period is shortened by nearly two months compared with traditional rice, so that farmers can achieve seamless planting of wheat and rice, within one year, a piece of land harvested twice, this year, It was the first year of trial planting of wheat stubble rice in Nanzhaozhuang Village, Zhangjiawo Town, Xiqing District, when the village finished harvesting wheat and began rice planting, it was almost July, and the village secretary Liu Jianwen had a lifelong deal with the land, and had never seen such a late rice variety, he said: "After the rice seedlings were planted, I have no roots in my heart, and I thought that this trial planting this year must have failed."
Facts are the most powerful persuasive force. The breeding experts of the Japonica Rice Center, from the first day of rice planting in Nanzhaozhuang Village, have fought with the rice farmers, often soaking in the rice field to guide everyone how to fertilize and protect the seedlings, and the next month, the villagers watched the rice seedlings turn green, jump high, and knot, and when harvesting, the yield was at least a thousand catties, from disbelief to smile, everyone was excited and satisfied as if they had watched a grand juggling performance.
The seed industry is the lifeline of modern agricultural development and the cornerstone of ensuring national food security. Nowadays, more and more young people have joined HuaZetian's scientific research team, injecting fresh blood into the cause of rice breeding.
In recent years, Tianjin has adhered to the road of rejuvenating agriculture through science and technology, invested nearly 20 million yuan, built the largest intelligent rice breeding greenhouse base in Beijing,Tianjin and Hebei, and also built a large-scale rice processing center with an annual processing of tens of thousands of tons, creating a complete industrial chain of small station rice breeding, planting and processing. Looking at everything in front of him, Hua Zetian said affectionately: "We rice people must step on the soil with our feet, not only to let people eat well, but also to eat healthy and nutritious."
The golden key to rural revitalization
Jinnan District Xiaozhan Town Hall Village, in the core planting area of Xiaozhan rice, village secretary Zheng Jialin has been playing in the rice fields since childhood, has a deep affection for the rice in his hometown, when he first became the secretary of the village, he was just in time for the Jinnan District Tsushima Factory to carry out large-scale comprehensive treatment, watching the river water clear day by day, Zheng Jialin's heart, once again drifted to the familiar rice field in his memory, he made up his mind to resume the cultivation of Xiaozhan rice.
Zheng Jialin, village secretary of Kaikan Village
As the first village in the Small Station area to officially propose to restore the cultivation of small station rice, Huiguan Village has received strong support from the district, and the district agricultural department has come up with 1.6 million yuan of special funds to help The Village comprehensively treat the land that has been abandoned for many years, Zheng Jialin They used this money to repair the pumping station, dig ditches and repair canals, level out 300 acres of rice fields in one go, the first year of trial planting, the mu yield reached 1,000 catties, and the supply in the market was in short supply. In 2018, Tianjin opened the Xiaozhan Rice Revitalization Plan, determined to comprehensively revitalize this long-established rice variety in our hometown from seed to table, and then, a series of preferential policies have been introduced, in two years, the planting area of Xiaozhan rice in Huiguan Village has increased from three hundred mu to six hundred mu, and for decades, villagers have dreamed of returning to the rice field of their childhood countless times.
Rural revitalization industry first, Huiguan Village has been planning in the past two years, the integration of all the resources related to small station rice in the village, to create a set of green development of the industrial system, they first registered a trademark for their own production of small station rice, at the same time in the district and town government support, investment of tens of millions of yuan, to create high-standard farmland, the construction of lotus ponds, landscape boardwalks, to engage in rice farming culture as the characteristics of ecological tourism, catch up with the weather, the number of tourists in a day can reach six or seven thousand people, Zheng Jialin said: In the future, our village should be based on small station rice, drive the first, second and third industries, and let the villagers stride forward on the road of rural revitalization! ”
Hao Wencheng, a villager in Huiguan Village, Xiaozhan Town
Kaikan Village Rural Tourism
In 2020, Tianjin Xiaozhan rice was officially included in the ranks of geographical indication protection of agricultural products in China, and at present, the ten agriculture-related areas in Tianjin are planting Xiaozhan rice, with a total planting area of nearly one million mu. After hundreds of years, from prosperity to loneliness to revitalization, Xiaozhan Rice is like an epic poem growing on the land of Jingu, which is constantly recited by people.
Source: Jinyun