What is the impact of hybrid rice technology in Yuan Longping on people's livelihood?

-Invention of hybrid rice technology1979 In April, more than 200 scientists from more than 20 countries attended the rice research conference held at the International Rice Research Institute in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. At the meeting, the paper "Hybrid Rice Breeding in China" written by China expert group Yuan Longping was read out. Since then, Yuan Longping's name has appeared in various media at home and abroad. It is internationally recognized that rice growing taller and shorter is the first green revolution. Hybrid rice is the second green revolution. Some famous rice research institutes in the world invited Yuan Longping to give lectures, impart technology and conduct cooperative research. Yuan Longping and his hybrid rice began to cross the ocean from China to the world.

In the early 1950s, when Yuan Longping University graduated and was assigned to teach at Anjiang Agricultural School in Hunan Province, the genetic theory of Mitchulin and lysenko was introduced to China, and Yuan Longping was once a devout believer in this theory. He conducted teaching and scientific experiments according to the theories of Michulin and lysenko.

1one day in July, 1960, during the routine breeding practice of early rice in Yuan Longping, several rice plants were found to stand out from the crowd, with excellent characters, large panicles and many grains, with 160 and 70 grains per panicle. After careful observation and cultivation of this rice, he realized that this "stand out from the crowd" rice is the advantage of natural hybrid rice. If he gets the treasure, he will take care of the grass and harvest a handful of golden seeds in the harvest season.

The next spring, he planted these seeds in the experimental field, thinking that they would become a promising generation. Because systematic breeding (that is, selecting excellent mutants from a population variety) is a major breeding method, many excellent rice and wheat varieties at that time, such as Shengli indica, Wan Li indica, Laolaiqing, Nanda2419, were selected by this method.

As early as 1926, American Jones discovered the phenomenon of rice male sterility. Japan, the United States, the Philippines and other countries began research work in the 1950s. Although their experimental methods are advanced, they are all technical difficulties and have not been applied to production so far. Therefore, the research of hybrid rice is a recognized problem in the world. At that time, some experts thought that it was very difficult to produce seeds by using heterosis as a "single caryopsis crop" like rice, and it could not be applied to production at all. And asserted: "hybrid rice is blocked!"

1June, 964, the sun is like fire, which is the season of rice flowering in the south. Every day from 0: 00 am to 3: 00 pm 165438+, he is busy in the vast rice fields, standing in the scorching sun, stepping on mud and holding a magnifying glass, looking for male sterility of rice. After 10 days of careful examination, the stamen-degenerated sterile plants were finally found in cultivated rice seeds, and their hybridization experiments and observations were carried out.

After two spring and autumn experiments, Yuan Longping had more perceptual knowledge about rice male sterile materials. He analyzed the obtained scientific data and wrote a paper on "Male Sterility in Rice", which was published in the 4th issue of Science Bulletin 1966. This paper not only discussed the male sterility of rice in detail for the first time, but also distinguished three different types: no pollen, pollen abortion and partial male sterility. At the same time, it is further predicted that the utilization of the first generation hybrid rice will bring about a large-scale and substantial increase in agricultural production. His discovery has been valued by the party and the state. 1967, which was officially listed as a key scientific research project in Hunan province.

However, the "Cultural Revolution" of 1966 brought serious interference to Yuan Longping's scientific research. Some hoodwinked people in Anjiang Agricultural School regard Yuan Longping as a typical example of "the road to white expertise", as a "bourgeois technical liar", and list him as the object of critical struggle. But Yuan Longping was not frightened by the difficulties, and the experimental basin was smashed, so he hid the unbroken experimental basin under a remote apple tree to continue his research. In particular, someone pulled out all the experimental seedlings of male sterility that he had worked so hard to cultivate and threw them into the well. Despite his stomachache, Yuan Longping took off his coat without hesitation and jumped into a well two feet deep to look for it. Because the well water was too deep, he had to use a pump, and it took him three days to drain it, and five plants were rescued, so that his experiment could continue.

In order to speed up the propagation and passage of hybrid rice seeds, Yuan Longping and his assistant go to Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan for breeding every year from 1969 to 10/mid-October, when the autumn is crisp and the cool breeze is gradually decreasing. In those years, he spent almost every Spring Festival in an experimental field in other places.

Year after year, they used more than 1000 varieties, made more than 3000 combinations, and made arduous explorations in many aspects. Yuan Longping understood: "The closer the genetic relationship, the more difficult it is to maintain the sterile line; The farther the genetic relationship, the greater the heterosis. " He imagined that if a distant wild rice crossed with cultivated rice, the heterosis would be stronger. The new understanding has brought about a new decision: looking for wild rice.

1970, Yuan Longping and his assistants Li Bihu and Yin Huaqi went to Hainan Island to look for wild rice. They went deep into the countryside, investigated everywhere, and finally found a strange rice in a swamp, with creeping stems, withered stamens and abortive pollen. It turns out that this is the common wild rice that they dreamed of losing male flowers, named "wild defeat". If they got the treasure, they cultivated it carefully, squatted in the ground for a few days to pollinate the wild defeat, and finally got a small amount of precious seeds. The discovery of "wild sterile plants" opened a breakthrough for the successful breeding of three lines.

The discovery of "wild rice sterile plant" is certainly an important turning point, but Yuan Longping knew that the natural "sterile plant" of wild rice should be changed into "sterile line", so as to realize "three-line matching" until it was applied to field production. There is still a rather difficult process. Do you want to go it alone, or do you want to dedicate your achievements to hundreds of scientific and technological personnel to tackle key problems and let hybrid rice come out as soon as possible? Inventors are broad-minded, and Yuan Longping chose the latter.

Yuan Longping's good wishes aroused a warm response. In a very short period of time, more than 100 researchers from dozens of scientific research units across the country used thousands of varieties to make tens of thousands of backcrosses with Bai Ye, which greatly accelerated the research process of hybrid rice. After more than a year of cooperative research, 1972 has bred a number of sterile lines and maintainer lines.

1March, 972, hybrid rice was listed as a national key scientific research project. Subsequently, led by China Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, a national scientific research collaboration group was established. In September of the same year, the first National Hybrid Rice Scientific Research Cooperation Conference was held in Changsha, Hunan, forming a nationwide scientific research cooperation network. Many agricultural research institutions and universities have shared the basic theoretical research of hybrid rice. They cooperated closely with breeders in cytology, genetics, physiological ecology and other aspects of rice "three lines" and hybrid combinations.

1973 On the basis of breaking through the "sterile line" and "maintainer line", the vast number of scientific and technological personnel have extensively bred more than 1000 varieties in the Yangtze River valley, South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, America, Europe and other places, and found more than1000 varieties with restoring ability through cross screening. Yuan Longping, Zhang Xiancheng and others. It is the first to find a number of restorer lines with strong advantages, developed anthers, large amount of pollen and more than 90% recovery among Southeast Asian varieties, officially declaring the success of "three lines" of indica hybrid rice in China! This indicates that the era of utilization of rice heterosis in China is coming.

"Is there heterosis in self-pollinated rice?" Since Yuan Longping put forward the research topic of rice male sterility, this issue has been the focus of debate in theoretical circles, and it is also a key issue related to the future research of hybrid rice.

1974, Yuan Longping bred the first strong combination "Nanyou No.2" in China and planted it in Anjiang Agricultural School. Mid-season rice yield per mu 1256 kg, as a demonstration cultivation of double-cropping late rice, yield per mu is more than 20 mu, 1022 kg. Subsequently, Yuan Longping broke through the advantages of hybrid rice combinations.

Since the winter of 1973, Yuan Longping has been sowing in the experimental field of Hainan Island, exploring the experience of high-yield seed production, personally observing the flowering habits of parents, looking for the relationship between leaf age and flowering period, and calculating the sowing date; Effective comprehensive measures such as sowing by stages, adjusting flowering period, cutting leaves, peeling bags, spraying "920" and artificial pollination were adopted to improve the seed setting rate. 1in the spring of 975, the cultivated land of 27 mu of Hunan Cooperative Group was increased to 58 kg per mu, and the high-yield hills passed the 100 kg mark.

Yuan Longping systematically summarized the practical experience of tackling key problems in seed production in this period, and wrote the article "Key Techniques for High Yield of Hybrid Rice Seed Production", which effectively guided hybrid rice seed production in China. 1in the winter of 975, there was a lively scene of thousands of troops descending to Hainan in Hunan, with a seed production area of more than 33,000 mu. Yuan Longping is the chief technical adviser. Due to effective measures, the first large-scale seed production was successful. This campaign not only produced a large number of seeds for the large-scale popularization of hybrid rice in China from 65438 to 0976, but also created and accumulated effective methods and experiences to adjust the flowering period of parents and improve the seed setting rate of female parents, initially explored a set of relatively complete seed production techniques, and broke another difficulty in the large-scale popularization of hybrid rice in China.

After the success of hybrid rice, Yuan Longping made great efforts in two aspects in order to apply scientific research results to production as soon as possible. On the one hand, we should conscientiously sum up theory and guide practice with theory; On the other hand, do a good job in high-yield demonstration and accelerate the popularization of hybrid rice through the role of high-yield demonstration.

1977 published the article "Practice and Theory of Hybrid Rice Breeding", earnestly summed up the rich practical experience of hybrid rice breeding in the past ten years, and profoundly expounded several important practical and theoretical problems in hybrid rice breeding from the combination of practice and theory. At the same time, he once again predicted that hybrid rice "has broad development prospects and great potential for increasing production." The publication of this paper expands the achievements of "three-line hybrid rice" and plays a great role in promoting the further development of hybrid rice.

In high-yield demonstration, as early as the spring of 1973, when the "three lines" were about to be matched, Yuan Longping personally prepared the first batch of hybrid rice seeds in Hainan Island. Although the quantity is only 20 kg, the first batch of precious seeds were planted in Hunan and Guangxi first, which shows the edge of increasing production!

From 65438 to 0974, on the one hand, Yuan Longping organized superiority identification, and at the same time, made great efforts to prepare a batch of hybrid seeds, which provided provenance for national multi-point demonstration. The Hunan Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government attached great importance to the promotion of hybrid rice. In that year, they organized cadres and the masses to visit the high-yield demonstration field of hybrid rice in the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences 104 mu, which was very shocking. The provincial party committee and government immediately made a decision to allocate 1 10,000 yuan of funds and 3 million Jin of grain at one time, and organized more than 8,000 cadres and technicians to go to Hainan to produce more than 30,000 mu of seeds, which was successful and prepared for large-scale popularization in the following year. 1in the winter of 975, the State Council made a decision to rapidly expand the trial planting and popularize it in large quantities. The state has invested a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources to carry out breeding and seed production for three generations a year, and to promote hybrid rice at the fastest speed.

From 1976 to 1994 19, more than 2.4 billion mu of hybrid rice was planted in China, with a cumulative increase of more than 200 billion Jin, equivalent to half of the total grain output of 1992. A Hunan farmer put it well: We rely on "two levels", Deng Xiaoping (responsibility system) and Yuan Longping (hybrid rice) to solve the problem of eating. This is an image that depends on policy and science. This plain language of ordinary farmers speaks the mind of hundreds of millions of farmers in China! According to the statistics of FAO 1990, the world rice planting area was 2.25 billion mu in that year, including 220 million mu of hybrid rice, accounting for only 10%, but the hybrid rice output accounted for 20% of the world total rice output in that year. An FAO official predicted that if all conventional rice were replaced by hybrid rice, the total rice output could be doubled and 65,438+could be fed.