Science and Technology Daily reporter Wang Yanbin Correspondent Wang Jing
Head blight, known as the “cancer” of wheat, is a devastating fungal disease. After 20 years of continuous research, Professor Kong Lingrang of Shandong Agricultural University led the team to complete the location, cloning and molecular mechanism analysis of the wheat scab resistance gene Fhb7, and cultivated wheat varieties resistant to scab resistance. Not long ago, the research was published as a cover article in the main issue of the international authoritative journal “Science”, and it was also included in the joint research plan for improved wheat varieties in my country.
Shandong Agricultural University started with agronomy and is famous for wheat. A reporter from Science and Technology Daily learned in this interview recently: Here, there are many wheat researchers like Kong Lingrang.
They pay close attention to the key issues in agricultural production, adhere to the principle of “topping the sky” for basic research and “situation” for applied research, and focus on the central task of sustained and stable development of wheat production in the Huanghuai wheat area. Produce high-quality results one by one.
Teachers are academicians, students are also academicians, teachers and students relay the problem of increasing wheat production
As the founder of modern wheat cultivation in China, Academician Yu Songlie worked at Shannong University for nearly 70 years before his death.
He researched and established the three-stage theory of wheat production development, the theory and cultivation technology of high-yield cultivation of winter wheat precision seeding and wide-range precision seeding, benefiting more than 500 million acres of wheat fields, and accumulatively increasing wheat production by more than 40 billion catties. Professor Yu Zhenwen, a student of Academician Yu Songlie and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, grasped the teacher’s “baton” at Shannong University and won two second prizes for national scientific and technological progress. He led the team to create a high-yield cultivation technique for wheat nitrogen fertilizer and deep loosening of wheat. In recent years, more than 300 million acres have been promoted in the cultivation technology of reduced tillage and no-tillage suppression, and water-saving cultivation technology of wheat moisture measurement and supplementary irrigation, which has increased the output by more than 20 billion catties. The achievements of the two academicians cover about half of the total wheat planting area in my country.
Wheat breeding has always been the advantage of Shannong University. More than 100 new wheat varieties have been selected and bred here, and the “mountain farmer’s answer sheet” has been handed in during the increase in grain production.
Professor Li Qingqi led the team to create the “Dwarf Meng Niu” wheat germplasm, based on which 32 national or provincial-level wheat varieties, 78 excellent new lines, and 96 derived resources were bred. The varieties (lines) they bred have been promoted in a total of more than 400 million mu, increasing the yield of wheat by more than 30 billion catties. In 1997, his achievements won the first prize of National Technical Invention.
Huanghuai wheat area is the largest barley area in my country, and it is also a “laboratory” for the scientific researchers of Shannong University.
During the wheat harvest season in 2019 and 2020, the “Shannong 28” cultivated by Professor Zhao Tanfang and the “Shannong 29” and “Shannong 30” wheat varieties cultivated by Professor Li Sishen broke the national yield record of winter wheat three times in two years.
At present, Li Sishen is carrying out expansion research focusing on the two varieties of “Shannong 29” and “Shannong 30”. He told reporters: “Not only do these two varieties have potential to be tapped, we are continuing to cultivate new varieties of high-yield and high-quality wheat.”
Store grain in technology, store grain in ground. Professor Wang Zhenlin, deputy head of the wheat expert guidance group of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, is the first doctoral student of Academician Yu Songlie.
For 40 years, he has always been engaged in theoretical research on the supporting methods of improved varieties and methods, and led the team to create a supporting fertility fertilization technology of “returning straw to the field and two rotations and one deep tillage” and the high yield of “increasing population, resisting lodging, and increasing weight”. Super high-yield cultivation technology. He said that the most important contribution of Mr. Shannong in the wheat field is to closely integrate breeding and cultivation to promote the realization of large-scale, high-yield and stable wheat production.
We did not live up to the burden that our predecessors gave us, and we didn’t sit on the bench in vain.
As an important food crop in our country, wheat is magical.
After being processed, a small grain of wheat becomes steamed bread, bread, noodles, dumplings… The “seven-two changes” of a grain of wheat are amazing. But many people don’t know that the contradiction that exists in wheat, “It is difficult to have both good taste and high yield”, has not been overcome.
But at Shannong University, scientists have tried their best to solve this problem.
Beginning in the 1980s, Shannongda began to study the selection and breeding of high-protein wheat varieties. The wheat variety PH82-2-2, selected by breeding experts such as Zhang Zhongyi, Liang Zuoqin, Tian Jichun, is the first large-scale promotion of high-quality bread wheat variety independently cultivated in my country, and it has won the second prize of national technological invention. In 2002, the country’s first new high-brightness-quality steamed bread variety “Shannongyoumai 3” was bred, 10 years ahead of the national ban on flour whitening agents.
After 2000, as the chief expert of Shandong Province’s high-quality engineering wheat, Tian Jichun led the provincial “super wheat” breeding team to bred 65 new wheat varieties, promoted more than 1 billion mu in total, and increased wheat production by 36 billion catties.
Among them, the result of “Multi-resistant, broad-adapted, high-yield and stable-yielding wheat variety Shannong 20 and its breeding technology” won the second prize of the 2017 National Science and Technology Progress Award. At that time, standing on the podium in the Great Hall of the People, Tian Jichun had mixed feelings: “I have not lived up to the burden entrusted to me by the senior scientists. I have not been sitting on the bench in vain these years.”
At present, green, high-quality and functional wheat varieties are a new trend in wheat breeding all over the world.
As early as 20 years ago, Tian Jichun forward-looking judged this breeding trend. Now, he has cultivated and approved “Shannong 26”, “Shannong 111”, “Shannong 102”, “Shannong Nuomai 1” and other new wheat varieties, setting a precedent for domestic green wheat breeding and health quality improvement.
The reporter learned that today Professor Tian Jichun retires and is still busy in the front line of scientific research. After setting the national record for the highest yield of special-purpose wheat, he bred and approved a number of new special-purpose functional wheat varieties such as “Shannong Lanmai No. 1”, “Shannong 101”, and “Shannong 981”.
Relay generation after generation, our dream is to cultivate the best wheat
“I am a farmer.” This is a sentence often mentioned by Academician Yu Songlie.
He said that the most valuable information can only be obtained by walking to the fields frequently. Because of this, he is called “academician living in farmland”.
“From farmers, give back to agriculture, and repay the country.” This simple emotion from the heart is rooted in the hearts of generations of mountain farmers. They are defending the grand dream of “Chinese bowl, Chinese grain, and Chinese seed” with practical actions, and contribute to ensuring the country’s food security.
Today, Academician Yu Zhenwen leads the wheat cultivation and breeding team to carry forward the predecessor’s spirit of “serving the country with science and technology and serving agriculture, rural areas and farmers”, and continues to tackle key problems in scientific research on food security.
A large number of young researchers, such as Wang Hongwei, Bao Yinguang, and Shi Yu, have grown into wheat experts, cultivating batches of talents who understand agriculture, love the countryside, and love farmers; Professor Fu Daolin’s team has taken over the baton of Professor Sun Lanzhen, After 8 years of painstaking exploration, the “national treasure” male sterile gene was successfully cloned, creating conditions for the realization of hybrid seed production of wheat and other crops.
Today, Shannong University has recruited publicly-funded agricultural students for four consecutive years to create a new force for rural revitalization, allowing generations of “new farmers” to truly integrate their “small self” into the “big self” of the motherland.
“My dream is to cultivate the best wheat!” Standing in the wheat experiment field, Ding Hao, the first public-funded agricultural student, was full of ambition. In this campus that is indissoluble with wheat, the “back waves” inherit the spirit of their predecessors, learn the latest knowledge, and keep moving forward with the dream of their homeland.
