The national germplasm Sanya wild cotton garden contains the future of new varieties of cotton——
"Cotton cotton" seed industry road
Hainan Daily reporter Huang Yuanyan correspondent Liu Ji
May 26-30 this year is the third agricultural science open day of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Every open day, I am the protagonist of countless curious eyes.
Who am I? I am a cotton seed preserved in the National Germplasm Sanya Wild Cotton Nursery (hereinafter referred to as the Sanya Wild Cotton Nursery) at the Hainan Research Center of the Cotton Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Although I only weigh 0.1 grams, but born from me, the whole body is a treasure: cotton flowers, can brew honey, cotton fiber made of clothes healthy and comfortable, cotton linter can also be made into banknotes, paper, cottonseed is some high-end skin care products and tumor treatment drugs are an important raw material.
Wild cotton is the basis of modern cotton breeding. There are 53 wild cotton species in the world, and the Sanya Wild Cotton Garden is home to 43 varieties and 799 wild cotton "sisters". It is precisely because of such rich wild cotton germplasm resources that breeders can cultivate new varieties of cotton that are "high-quality and dedicated, green and environmentally friendly, disease-resistant and stress-resistant, resource-efficient, suitable for light simplification and mechanization", and win the battle of turning the seed industry around.
Sanya is the world's wild cotton collection
It has preserved 799 materials of 43 varieties of wild cotton and has become a research material library for cotton researchers nationwide
If you walk into the Sanya Wild Cotton Garden, you will definitely be attracted by my "distant relative" Yang Ye Xiaoqin. It's a big guy, more than 10 meters tall. On its side is our "sister", Australian cotton, which is almost creeping to the ground. Not far away, there is also a "sister" who is different from our "skin color" - Darwin's cotton, its cotton wool is brown, everyone likes to call it "colored cotton".
Located in Sanya Yazhou District, The National Germplasm Sanya Wild Cotton Nursery. Photo courtesy of China Cotton
Because of the nuances of genes, my wild cotton "sisters" have their own characteristics in terms of plant height, leaves, plant type, or the length of cotton fibers and the size of the fruit, which have high scientific and academic value. This little difference is the key to breeders' research. They can discover excellent genes from wild cotton species, and enhance the performance of cotton cultivars in drought resistance and insect resistance through hybridization and other means, so that cotton fibers are longer, stronger and finer. Therefore, wild cotton is the basis of modern cotton breeding, as a germplasm garden and live bank of wild cotton, the importance of Sanya wild cotton garden is self-evident, right?
Why choose to set up a wild cotton garden in Sanya? "Hainan belongs to the tropical, subtropical climate, is one of the earliest cotton planting areas in China, cotton plant types are diverse, germplasm resources are abundant, and Sanya light temperature conditions are good, some germplasm resources can only flower and bear fruit here, which helps to observe traits and increase the number of seeds." Du Xiongming, the "father of Chinese color cotton" and director of the Variety Resources Research Office of the Cotton Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the China Cotton Institute), said.
In order to expand the wild cotton varieties in the cotton garden, the breeders have traveled to Yunnan, Guizhou, Tibet and other places to find my wild "sisters" in the ravines. Since 2011, experts from the Institute of Cotton China have successively gone to the United States, Australia, Brazil and other cotton distribution areas to conduct field investigations, and collected the original materials of wild cotton through international academic exchanges, enriching the germplasm resources in wild cotton nurseries.
At present, there are 43 varieties and 799 resource materials of wild cotton preserved in the sanya wild cotton garden, which can provide experimental materials for the whole country and become the most convenient material library for cotton researchers in China. "Cotton nurseries can directly take branches and leaves, pollen for interspecific hybridization, mainly for asexual reproduction, long-term preservation, identification evaluation and shared utilization, and it also submits branches, dormant buds, pollen, seeds and other materials to the National Crop Germplasm Bank for in vivo preservation research." Wan Jianmin, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said.
In the 10 years from 2008 to 2018, Chinese scholars published 2261 high-quality papers on cotton, ranking first in the world. "Wild cotton has become the main channel for basic research and applied basic research resources in cotton in China, contributing to 31 scientific and technological achievements and winning 38 awards." Yuan Youlu, deputy director of the Biotechnology Research Office of the China Cotton Institute, said.
Hainan wild cotton is rich in resources
Pengpeng cotton is the "fragrant food" in the eyes of breeders, and it is expected to breed new varieties that are resistant to salinity and alkali
In the Sanya wild cotton garden, there is also a "star sister", which I would like to highlight to you. Its plants are 1.2 to 1.4 meters tall, with milky yellow flowers, small cotton bells, and short cotton fibers. Although it is not beautiful and has no direct economic value, it is a "fragrant food" in the eyes of breeders.
It is a cotton species native to Hainan, the name is also interesting, scientists call it perennial land cotton semi-wild type - Pengpeng cotton, the Li people call it "Beixu", the Miao people call it "Bei Taiyin".
The flowers of wild cotton in the National Germplasm Sanya Wild Cotton Garden. Hainan Daily reporter Wu Wei photographed
Written records about Pengpeng cotton first appeared in ancient books such as the "Chronicle of Yazhou". According to records, cotton was planted in Hainan in the 12th century. Xiang Xianlin, a researcher at the China Cotton Institute and an expert on cotton variety resources, collected 36 copies of Pengpeng cotton germplasm when he inspected the resources of Hainan cotton in the 1980s, believing that this may be a type formed by long-term cultivation and release on Hainan Island, which has opened a window for the study of wild cotton in China.
Later, recognizing the importance of germplasm resource conservation, generations of cotton breeders came to Hainan to find wild cotton resources. In March 2015, by chance, Du Xiongming discovered the vigorous growth of Pengpeng cotton on Yongxing Island in Sansha City. By comparing it with the Pengpeng cotton material collected from Dongfang City, Hainan Province, and Zhanjiang Island, Guangdong Province, he discovered the uniqueness of Hainan Pengpeng cotton.
"Hainan's wild Pengpeng cotton is a wild strain of upland cotton, which may originate off the coast of Mexico, spread through the North Equatorial Ocean Current, and grow naturally in many parts of Hainan all year round, and there is a wide genetic differentiation between the existing cotton varieties, the degraded upland cotton in southwest China, and the semi-wild pedigree of upland cotton in Central America." Du Xiongming said.
So why is Phong Phong cotton valued by cotton breeding experts? Du Xiongming said that after the soil where cotton is planted is subjected to salt stress, cotton yield will seriously decline, but Pengpeng cotton can live in high-temperature and high-salt areas for a long time, indicating that it may have anti-salinity genes. He revealed that at present, the team has placed the collected Pengpeng cotton seeds in Sanya for breeding, and through the study of the genetic population of "Hainan Pengpeng cotton × land cultivation cotton", it is expected to breed new varieties of cotton resistant to salinity.
But the above excellent genes are only the "tip of the iceberg" in the Fluffy Cotton gene pool. It belongs to more than 70,000 genes in upland cotton, and if a gene changes, the fiber variety, leaf color and other traits will change accordingly. Therefore, my "sister" of fluffy cotton still has a large number of favorable genes waiting to be studied and excavated. I sincerely hope that it can play a more important role in broadening the excellent genetic resources, improving germplasm and innovative utilization of cotton breeding in China.
Promote innovation in the seed industry
In two and a half years, a stable cotton material can be bred, and nearly 200 new varieties of cotton have been bred successively, with a planting area of more than 550 million mu in the country
Among the cotton cultivars in the world, upland cotton has high yield and strong adaptability, and is currently the most widely cultivated cotton species in the world, accounting for 90% of the world's total cotton production. But upland cotton also has its shortcomings and shackles. Due to the narrow genetic resources of cultivated species of upland cotton, it is difficult to cultivate breakthrough new varieties in a short period of time. At this time, we "sisters" in the sanya wild cotton garden can play a role.
For example, brown Darwin's cotton has the characteristics of drought tolerance, salt and alkali resistance, barrenness tolerance, and good fiber fineness. Breeders are trying to introduce the excellent alleles of Darwin's cotton into upland cotton, broaden the genetic base of upland cotton, and improve the fibrous quality and yield of upland cotton.
Yellow brown cotton is most distantly related to upland cotton cultivars, but its fiber quality is rich in variation, and it has significant resistance to insect pests and verticillium wilt. Therefore, some breeders are also trying to introduce the excellent alleles of melasma cotton into upland cotton, digging more favorable alleles, and looking forward to broadening the genetic base of upland cotton.
Researchers at the China Cotton Institute are inspecting the growth of new varieties of cotton in sanya's wild cotton garden. Photo courtesy of China Cotton
Wild variety of wool has many villi, insect resistance, drought resistance, fiber fine, tough and other characteristics, breeders are trying to introduce these excellent genes into the upland cotton, and strive to improve the fiber quality of upland cotton...
In addition to helping to improve the fiber quality of cotton, our wild cotton "sisters" also play a role in many areas.
"Cotton is also an important oil crop, the oil content of cottonseed kernels is about 45%, the seed kernel protein content is also very high, cottonseed as a source of oil extraction, protein supply and feed and food materials, has broad commercial prospects." Limiting the large-scale use of cottonseed is the gossypol in cottonseed, which is toxic and cannot be eaten directly, but gossamol has an effect on the treatment of some tumors. Song Guoguo, chief expert of the cotton functional genome innovation team of the China Cotton Institute, said.
Another of my "sisters", Australian cotton, has a way of solving this conundrum. Some of its wild cotton species have the trait of "delayed formation of cotyledon pigment glands", in short, that is, during the dormancy period of cotton seeds, the seeds do not contain glands and gossypols, and only when the seeds are inflated and germinated, the glands and gossypols will be formed successively.
"This characteristic brings new ideas to the breeding of low (no) phenol cotton, and it is even possible to fundamentally solve the problem that cottonseed is difficult to use on a large scale." Song Guoli revealed that his team is currently studying the disease resistance and low (no) phenol characteristics of Australian cotton, and through hybridization and other methods, they expect to breed new varieties of cotton with more energy efficiency.
Having said all this, you probably understand that although Hainan is not the main producer and main consumption of cotton in China, through the "accelerator" of Sanya Nanfan, with the help of our wild cotton family, Sanya wild cotton garden is playing an increasingly important role.
"Through the collection, preservation and innovative utilization of wild cotton resources and remote hybrid resource materials, the Hainan Nanfan Base of the China Cotton Institute has selected and bred nearly 200 new varieties of cotton, with a planting area of more than 550 million mu in the country." Peng Jun, deputy director of the China Cotton Institute, revealed that at present, the Nanfan base has realized the breeding of cotton in three generations a year, and a stable cotton material can be selected and bred in two and a half years, which is much faster than the traditional 15 years, and the application of "conventional breeding + biotechnology + informatization" will further improve the efficiency of breeding.
At present, Hainan takes the construction of Sanya Yazhouwan Science and Technology City as a platform to develop the Nanfan industry, accelerate the construction of the global animal and plant germplasm resource transit base, especially the construction of shared experimental platforms such as the Nanfan Crop Phenotype Research Facility and the Seed Innovation Research Institute, and increase intellectual property protection and system integration innovation. I believe that as people increase the protection and utilization of germplasm resources, small cotton seeds like me will exert greater potential, and the future road of cotton seed industry will become wider and wider.
(Sanya, June 1, this newspaper)
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