Ploughing the wheat field for the sake of agriculture

"As long as there are no extreme weather, this year's wheat harvest is not a big problem." Recently, in the dryland wheat test field in Shangyuan Village, Hougong Township, Wenxi County, Shanxi Province, Gao Zhiqiang pulled down the emerald green ears of wheat and rubbed them in his hands while observing.

Gao Zhiqiang is a professor, doctoral supervisor of Shanxi Agricultural University, a post scientist of the National Wheat Industry Technology System, and the director of the "Collaborative Innovation Center for High-quality and Efficient Production of Characteristic Crops on the Loess Plateau" jointly built by the province and the ministry. The test field at his feet was selected 11 years ago by his mentor, Mr. Miao Guoyuan, a famous wheat cultivation expert in China, with him.

"At that time, Mr. Miao, who was 76 years old, instructed me to pass on the feeling of 'loving farmers for agriculture and rejuvenating agriculture.'" A few years later, Gao Zhiqiang answered with excellent results: the team twice set the highest wheat yield record in Shanxi Province; more than 90 national, provincial and ministerial scientific research projects were approved; a group of young and promising master's and doctoral students became "new farmers" for rural revitalization...

Crouch in the wheat field and practice

The history of dry cultivation research of shanxi nongda wheat can be traced back to the 1930s, and the first generation of leaders Mr. Li Huanzhang's "Wheat Field Investigation and Research Methods", "Biostatistics and Field Experiment Design", "Crop Cultivation" and so on, enjoy a high reputation in the industry. In 1958, Li Huanzhang led the creation of the first batch of domestic crop cultivation master's programs, leading young teachers and students to go deep into the wheat producing areas of Shanxi to conduct extensive research, accumulating reliable data for future wheat research, and enriching and enriching the teaching content in the field of dryland cultivation.

As one of the first batch of graduate students trained by Li Huanzhang, Miao Guoyuan has been squatting in Dongguanzhuang, Wenxi County for 6 consecutive years since 1972, and together with local technicians to explore the law of cultivation and cultivation, put forward the cultivation technology with "four mornings and three more" as the core, and realized the wheat yield of the loess plateau from more than 150 kilograms to more than 250 kilograms per mu, which became a major highlight of the agricultural front at that time.

In the mid-1980s, Miao Guoyuan participated in the "National Wheat Ecology Research" presided over by Jin Shanbao, the main founder of modern wheat science in China, as the main finisher, and the collaborative research results won the third prize of the National Natural Science Award.

"The production practice survey and the twice-yearly farmer survey advocated by our predecessors are still an important method for our team to carry out wheat research." Gao Zhiqiang said.

Entering a new era, in order to meet the needs of serving rural revitalization and industrial technology development, Gao Zhiqiang's team took the organic drought of wheat and other crops as the main research direction, took the 2009 Wenxibu new experiment as the starting point, and relied on the first batch of national -level "Shanxi Wheat Agricultural Science and Education Cooperation Talent Training Base" creation projects and "Agricultural Science Comprehensive Practice Education Platform Construction and Characteristic Education Model Innovation" and other provincial and ministerial education reform projects, which lasted more than 10 years, and constantly explored the production and education, industry and education, and education of local colleges and universities. The characteristic road created by the agricultural science and education cooperation talent training base under the multi-dimensional integration of science and education.

Inherit the spirit of learning from predecessors

Gao Zhiqiang's mobile phone saved a photo taken by a colleague in July 2009, which truly recreated the scene of the country's well-known dry-farming wheat expert farming in the wheat field. Under the scorching sun, a man wearing a white sunhat and short-sleeved shorts pushed a wooden ploughing cart with both hands, and in front of him was a middle-aged man in a vest.

"At that time, we were implementing the wheat field leisure period water storage and moisture preservation test in the 'three advances' technology of dry-land wheat fields, and it was Han Yunsheng, who was the director of the technical station of the Wenxi County Agricultural Bureau at the time, and it was me who pushed the cart." Gao Zhiqiang told reporters.

This seemingly primitive approach is an extraordinary new beginning for dry-grown wheat in Shanxi.

The "three advances" technology mentioned by Gao Zhiqiang is the team's active broadening of new ideas for the research and development of dryland wheat, and in accordance with the new changes in agriculture and rural areas, the innovative dryland wheat water storage and moisture cultivation technology proposed, that is, deep ploughing or deep pine in advance, deep application of organic fertilizer in advance, and early return of straw to the field or covering.

"The subject comes from production, the results serve the production, and the teachers and students grow in the base" is the principle that the team has adhered to for many years. After wenxilong to the head, Qiujialing, Shangyuan village and other places, the team in Shanxi Province Hongdong, Xindi, Yicheng and other counties to develop and create irrigation area wheat, characteristic wheat integrated practice base, has launched such as "tanqi ditch sowing technology" and "wide width uniform sowing technology" and other optimized wheat cultivation and management new technologies.

For more than 10 years, the operation mode of the integrated practice base that Integrates five functions of "Scientific Research Innovation - Technology Demonstration - Industrial Integration - Science and Benefit Agriculture - Farming And Reading Practice" actively constructed by Gao Zhiqiang's wheat research team has gradually matured, and the integrated practice talent training framework of the five types of service rural revitalization strategies of "agricultural graduate student training, agricultural young teacher training, agricultural technician training, farmer training, and agricultural machinery large household cultivation" has basically taken shape.

Since 2015, the team has won 4 awards such as the first prize of Shanxi Province Science and Technology Progress Science and Technology Award, and the related technologies have been promoted and applied in Shanxi, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, with a promotion area of 45.34 million mu, making an important contribution to the stable production and increase of production in the wheat area of the Loess Plateau. In 2017 and 2019, the team twice set the record for the highest yield of wheat in Shanxi Province.

Sharpening the new generation of "master's and doctoral farmers"

In order to inherit the fine tradition of the predecessors rooted in the front-line scientific research practice of Jinnan Wheat District, the team actively explored and built a five-dimensional full-process practical training and cultivation mechanism for graduate students who integrated "academic writing training - experimental design training - field production tempering - chemical experiment training - comprehensive ability training", so as to enhance the feelings and skills of teachers and students to "learn from farmers and love farmers".

"Only in the Wenxi base, the annual operation of scientific research innovation and experimental demonstration projects and platform operation projects is close to 10, each year to arrange about 15 tests, more than 200 treatment, which requires the observation and recording of the whole growth cycle of wheat, 90-120 days a year in the base test, the workload is very large." Sun Min, head of project operation at the base, said.

"Seven or eight people fertilized 85 acres of land, 40 kilograms per acre, more than 400 kilograms per capita, and they had to be finished in two days." Team member Dr. Ren Aixia recounted her personal experience when fertilizing the wheat test field, "One fertilization is enough to consume energy to the extreme. ”

Since 2009, a group of young master's and doctoral students have entered Gao Zhiqiang's team and have withstood the test of "three passes" of physical fitness, skills and health.

The unremitting efforts have finally borne fruit.

In September 2020, marked by the approval of the "Collaborative Innovation Center for High-quality and Efficient Production of Characteristic Crops on the Loess Plateau" jointly built by the province and the ministry, the Shanxi Nongda Wheat Cultivation Team was ranked among the innovative "National Teams" by the "local team" of scientific research, and formed a large team of "Crop Ecology and Dryland Cultivation Physiology", and the team has successively obtained the support of more than 20 scientific research innovation categories and collaborative human breeding platforms in eight categories, including the National Functional Grain Center, the National First-class Major, the Provincial Key Discipline, the Key Laboratory, and the Key Innovation Team.

At present, the team has presided over 90 approved national, provincial and ministerial scientific research projects, published more than 150 high-level research papers, published 32 monographs and textbooks, 42 nationally authorized patents, and trained more than 200 master's and doctoral students.

In recent years, the team has focused on the transformation and development of Shanxi, focusing on the characteristics and advantages of the Loess Plateau, aiming at the health care market, actively promoting the development of functional agriculture, expanding research on functional agricultural products such as quinoa, buckwheat, oats, etc., recruiting undergraduate students in functional agriculture, and reserve talents for the future multi-functional agricultural development strategy of agricultural tourism and health integration.

Liao Yuncheng, secretary of the Party Committee of Shanxi Agricultural University, said that in the future, the school will promote the close integration of educational resources and scientific research resources, promote the transformation of scientific research resources into educational resources, and the characteristics of the industry into the characteristics of disciplines and professions, so as to comprehensively deepen the construction of the connotation of new agricultural sciences.

China Education News, June 15, 2021, 1st edition

Author: Zhao Yan, reporter of this newspaper, correspondent He Yunfeng