Changsha, 22 May (China News Service) -- Yuan Longping, the "Father of Hybrid Rice," Passed Away And He Spent His Whole Life Struggling for "Two Dreams."
China News Service reporter Bai Zukai, Deng Xia, and Liu Shuangshuang
Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice", died in Changsha on the 22nd at the age of 91. The self-proclaimed "post-90s" academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering has spent his life fighting tirelessly for two well-known dreams, the "dream of cooling under the grass" and the "dream of hybrid rice covering the world".
Yuan Longping, born in 1930 in Beiping (Beijing's former name), followed his parents in his youth, and his turbulent life made him plant the seeds of striving for strength in his heart. After graduating from The Southwest Agricultural College in 1953 with a major in genetics and breeding, he was assigned to work at the Anjiang Agricultural School in Hunan. "Seeing the poverty and backwardness of the countryside, I am a little ambitious, and I want to transform the countryside and do something practical for the peasants."
At that time, the situation that people generally did not have enough to eat made Yuan Longping, as an agricultural science and technology worker, feel remorseful and deeply appreciate the meaning of "the people take food as the sky", which also gave his ambition to "transform the countryside" a clear goal: to solve the problem of increasing grain production and not to let the people starve.
Rice is the main crop in Hunan. Yuan Longping began experimenting with rice cultivation in 1960 and has been struggling for more than half a century to solve the problem of increasing grain production.
In 1966, Yuan Longping published a paper "Male Infertility of Rice" in the "Scientific Bulletin", which formally proposed to use the advantages of rice hybrids by cultivating the "three lines" of rice (that is, male sterile lines, male sterile maintenance lines, and male sterile restoration lines), and using the "three lines" supporting method to use the advantages of rice hybrids, thus opening the prelude to the research of hybrid rice in China.
In 1973, at the Second National Hybrid Rice Scientific Research Collaboration Conference, Yuan Longping, on behalf of the Hunan Provincial Rice Male Sterile Line Research Collaboration Group, made a speech on "The Progress of Using 'Wild Defeat' to Select and Breed Three Lines", and officially announced the success of the three lines of indica hybrid rice. Since then, hybrid rice has first been promoted in Hunan, and then blossomed and borne fruit everywhere in China, and the average yield of rice per mu has also "soared".
In 1996, the former Chinese Ministry of Agriculture proposed a super rice breeding plan. The scientific research team led by Yuan Longping has successfully overcome the problem of ultra-high yield breeding of rice through the combination of morphological improvement and the utilization of hybrid advantages, and constantly refreshed the yield per mu. At present, the five phases of the super rice plan have been fully completed, which are 700 kg, 800 kg, 900 kg, 1000 kg and 1100 kg per mu. The average yield of the third generation of hybrid rice in the morning and evening double-cropping rice also exceeded 1500 kg in Hengnan County, Hunan Province in 2020.
Yuan Longping (data picture) China News Service reporter Liu Shuangshuang photographed
As a witness and practitioner of China's reform and opening up, Yuan Longping once recalled that the thesis that "science and technology is a productive force" has brought about the "spring of science", and his most obvious feeling is that scientific research funds have increased year by year; at the same time, the continuous improvement of the living standards of Chinese people has put forward higher requirements for breeding researchers, not only to let everyone eat well but also to eat well, to eat quality and eat healthily.
To this end, the super hybrid rice "three yields and four yields" yield project led by Yuan Longping has changed from emphasizing yield in the past to taking into account the goal of green quality. Among the more than 30 varieties that participated in the "three varieties and four yields" yield project in 2017, high-quality rice accounted for more than 30%, and the rice quality of many varieties has reached the national secondary standard.
"The dream of cooling under the grass" and "the dream of hybrid rice covering the world" are yuan longping's lifelong dreams. The former was his real dream—he and his assistant sat under a broom's long ear of rice to cool off. This dream has gradually become a reality with the increasingly high yield of super rice.
The latter hopes that Super Rice will go abroad. "There are 160 million hectares of rice fields in the world, and if half of them are planted with hybrid rice, and the yield is increased by 2 tons per hectare, the increase in food production can feed an additional 500 million people every year." In Yuan Longping's view, the development of hybrid rice will effectively solve the problem of food shortage in the world.
Yuan Longping (data map) China News Service reporter Yang Huafeng photo
In 1979, Yuan Longping was invited to read a paper at the International Academic Conference on Hybrid Rice held in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, entitled "Hybrid Rice Breeding in China", which was the first time that the results of China's hybrid rice research were made public to the international community. At the meeting, experts from various countries recognized that the research and promotion and application of hybrid rice in China has ranked in the world.
Three years later, when Yuan Longping came to the International Rice Research Institute again to participate in the International Rice Academic Conference, he heard the title of "Father of Hybrid Rice" for the first time. At that time, Dr. SwamiNathsen, director of the International Rice Research Institute, told the delegates that we callEd Mr. Yuan Longping the "father of hybrid rice", he deserved it, and his achievements brought good news to the world.
Yuan Longping once said that he understood that the "father" means "founder", which is a very high honor, both gratifying and encouraging, but also very stressful, "to give you such an honor, you can not lie on the merit book, you must continue to work hard." Since it first "stepped out" of China in 1979, hybrid rice has now been studied and promoted in dozens of countries and regions around the world, and the planting area abroad has reached 8 million hectares.
Yuan Longping (data photo) Photo by Xiong Yangjun, China News Agency
Turning a hundred million acres of wasteland into fertile land is another wish of Yuan Longping. There are about 100 million hectares (1.5 billion mu) of saline land in China, of which 280 million mu can be developed and utilized. According to conservative estimates, the future yield of 200-300 kilograms per mu can increase grain production by tens of billions of kilograms per year and feed about 200 million more people. In 2020, the Qingdao Seawater Rice R&D Center, led by Yuan Longping, expanded the area of seawater rice planted nationwide to 100,000 mu, with an average yield of more than 400 kg per mu and a maximum yield of more than 800 kg per mu.
"Knowledge, sweat, inspiration and opportunity." Yuan Longping once shared with young people the "eight-character secret" of his scientific research success. He said that young people are full of dreams, but it is not enough to stay in dreams, to establish ideals and strive to achieve the ideal, "I have always worked hard to make my two dreams come true."
In recent years, China News Service reporters have interviewed Yuan Longping in Changsha many times, and he has said each time that he will march towards the goal of higher fertility; as long as his health allows or does not travel, he will go to the test field every day to see, "Without engaging in hybrid rice, my life will have no meaning." (End)
Source: China News Network