Super hybrid rice: fill the Chinese bowl with Chinese food

Super Hybrid Rice: Crossing the "Forbidden Zone" of Breeding and Filling China's Bowl with Chinese Grain

Super hybrid rice: across the breeding "forbidden zone", let the Chinese bowl be full of Chinese food Super hybrid rice: across the breeding "forbidden zone", let the Chinese bowl be full of Chinese food

Medium rice yields 900 kg, 1000 kg, 1100 kg per mu, and double-season rice yields 1500 kg per mu.
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With the unremitting efforts of scientific researchers headed by Yuan Longping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering , China’s super hybrid rice yield per mu has been constantly following its own achievements.
"It has set a new world record time and time again, guaranteeing the national food security and the "sense of security" that the people can eat
.

academician

2000, 2004, 2011, 2014
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700 kg, 800 kg, 900 kg, 1000 kg
.

Two sets of corresponding numbers, one goal
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In 1996, China launched the "China Super Rice Breeding Project"
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Initially, it was planned to be divided into two phases.

By 2000 and 2005, rice varieties with a yield of 700 kg and 800 kg per mu were bred

But the "plan" failed to keep up with the "change"
.
The "story" of super hybrid rice has just begun, but it has no end

.

Medium rice yields 900 kg, 1000 kg, 1100 kg per mu, and double-season rice yields 1500 kg per mu.
.
.
With the unremitting efforts of scientific researchers headed by Yuan Longping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering , China’s super hybrid rice yield per mu has been constantly following its own achievements.
"It has set a new world record time and time again, guaranteeing the national food security and the "sense of security" that the people can eat
.

academician

In China today, the truly unforgettable "hungry" feeling has become an "experience" that is no longer possible
.
In the peaceful life of the years, do people know the history of Chinese scientists' struggle against hunger in the history of mankind?

This paper is still shining after more than half a century

This paper is still shining after more than half a century

"A small rice plant has solved the food problem of the people in China and the world
.
It was a landmark paper published by Mr.

Yuan Longping in 1966 that opened the prelude to the use of heterosis in rice breeding in China

On February 28, 1966, Yuan Longping's paper entitled "Male Sterility in Rice" was published in the Chinese version of "Science Bulletin" Vol.
17 No.
4
.
On April 15, the English version excerpted and translated by the editorial office of the "Science Bulletin" was published in its foreign language edition, Volume 17, Issue 7

.

No one ever thought that such a paper that challenged the classic theory and "shocked the world" has been confirmed by scientific research and application to this day
.

This is a "prediction" of crossing the "forbidden zone" of rice breeding
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With it, the rapid development of China's hybrid rice breeding and industry has made a great contribution to China and the world's food security

.

"Rice has heterosis", "It is necessary to use the heterosis of rice, and the male sterility of rice is the first priority.
" "Through further breeding, it is expected to find male sterile lines, maintainer lines and restorer lines, and achieve three-line matching, so that the use of hybridization The first-generation advantage of rice becomes possible and will bring substantial increase in rice production", the article "Male Sterility of Rice" is so clear
.

Behind the conclusion is the "first experience" of Yuan Longping and several rice scientists
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"For systematic breeding, we must choose large ears
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Every year from the heading to maturity of rice, I go to the fields to select seeds

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How did he know that the "good seed" he was looking forward to in the second year was uneven
.

Depressed Yuan Longping sat alone on the ridge, staring at the rice plants in a daze
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In the meantime, inspiration came suddenly: self-pollinated rice has a "separation" phenomenon that can only be found in the offspring of hybrids.

Does it mean that self-pollinated crops may also have heterosis?

Thinking of this, he quickly recorded and repeatedly counted the uneven separation ratio of rice ears
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3:1! Fully conforms to Mendelian separation law! Yuan Longping is very excited: the "outstanding chickens" plant he selected is indeed a natural hybrid rice! Rice does have heterosis!

Heterosis is a universal phenomenon in the biological world
.
However, according to the classical theories of genetics and the prevailing international opinions at that time, rice, as a self-pollinating crop with small floral organs, has no heterosis

.

But even if his conclusions were contrary to the authority of the time, he still insisted on his ideas
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Together with other scientific researchers, he "searched him for thousands of times" among thousands or tens of thousands of rice ears every day in the wind and sun

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According to records, in 1964 and 1965, they inspected hundreds of thousands of rice ears, repeatedly tested and accumulated them, and finally published the shining paper "Male Sterility in Rice" in the history of hybrid rice in the world.
Sex"
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"This paper is a pioneering work in the field of hybrid rice research, pointing out the strategic direction of hybrid rice breeding development, and has eternal guidance for the subsequent collaborative research on hybrid rice breeding and development across the country
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" Director of China National Rice Research Institute Cheng Hua said
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In 1971, Chinese scientists bred male sterile lines
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In 1973, Chinese scientists found a three-line matching model and established the "National Hybrid Rice Research Cooperation Group
.
" In 1976, China successfully realized large-scale seed production with three-line matching
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It was only 6 years before and after, which is surprising China's speed
.

On June 6, 1981, because of this outstanding contribution, New China's first special invention award was awarded to the National Indica Hybrid Rice Scientific Research Collaboration Group
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In fact, inspired by the paper, research on hybrid rice has gradually emerged abroad
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In 1977, the International Rice Research Institute launched a hybrid rice research project; in the early 1990s, the project expanded to countries in South Asia and Southeast Asia; in 1991, the International Rice Research Institute bred and released the first foreign commercial hybrid rice variety in the Philippines.
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Their scientific research has also suffered a "disaster of extinction"

Their scientific research has also suffered a "disaster of extinction"

"Don't look at China's super hybrid rice technology today that is attracting attention, but the process of research is the same as other scientific research, and it is unavoidable to be beaten and go the wrong way
.
" Xie Changjiang, the former party secretary of the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center , once told the Science and Technology Daily reporter.
Tucao
.

Party Secretary

China's hybrid rice technology is a strong mark in the history of the world's scientific and technological development
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It is also a "national treasure" for ensuring national food security and a "heavy tool" for solving the food problem of one billion people
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However, the road to tackling key problems in hybrid rice technology is not "successful"
.
For example, the two-line research after the three-line breeding almost ended the research on the two-line hybrid rice technology
.

The so-called two-line hybrid rice breeding technology is a breeding technology based on a light-temperature-sensitive male sterile line
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Compared with the previous three-line hybrid rice breeding technology, the light-temperature-sensitive sterile line as the "mother" acts as a sterile line and a maintainer line at the same time
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In other words, hybrid rice breeding has developed from "one wife and two husbands" to "one wife and one husband"
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What is the scientific status of the two-system method? In 2014, in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, the super hybrid rice was once again awarded the "2013 National Science and Technology Progress Special Award"
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The reason for the award is China’s original "two-line hybrid rice technology"
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This is also one of the commonly used techniques for super hybrid rice breeding in China until now
.

It was this achievement that had such a status, but it suffered a serious setback during the midsummer low temperature in 1989 , and it was almost completely denied
.

1989

At the beginning of the study, researchers did not fully understand the "mother"'s fertility conversion habits
.
Until 1989 , a rare low temperature appeared in the midsummer of our country
.

1989

In this low temperature, the "mother" behaved extremely "uneasy" and abnormally "switched" between the roles of the sterile line and the maintainer line, which eventually led to a large-scale failure of the two lines of legal seed production across the country that year
.
For a time, the scientific research community generally "badged" two-line breeding, and the research was even abandoned by the state and scientific researchers
.

Yuan Longping and the researchers gritted their teeth with great pressure, looking for the reasons, adjusting the technical strategy of breeding sterile lines, and finally discovered the "critical temperature point" leading to male sterility, and solved the critical temperature "drift" during the reproduction process of sterile lines.
And so on
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Only afterwards, this major breakthrough in breeding technology in the history of world crop breeding has also allowed China to continue to lead the world in the level of hybrid rice research
.

The global dream of China's hybrid rice "shocks every step"

The global dream of China's hybrid rice "shocks every step"

In 1979, Yuan Longping was invited to the Philippines to attend an international academic conference and give a conference report.
This was the first time that China disclosed the results of hybrid rice research to the international community
.
Since then, Chinese hybrid rice began to go to the world
.

Few people know how "shocking every step" is behind the Chinese hybrid rice going international
.
In this regard, Yuan Longping once recalled: “In the rice laboratory of the Central Agricultural Research Institute of Myanmar, my students and I worked in the fields
.
Because the Burmese believe in Buddha and do not kill, there are cobras everywhere in the rice fields .
Once
, from the drawer.
Eight little cobras sprang out from the Lilian, and I still have lingering fears
.
In the tropical rain forest, we have to fight against the blood-sucking dryland leeches .
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.
"

struggle

It is under such circumstances that a few years ago, during the golden rice growing season in Nigeria, a group of rice farmers from Changsha flew to the local area to implement large-scale planting of 10,000 mu of hybrid rice
.
At first, choosing a local "gemous land" that can grow hundreds of acres of rice fields can keep the experts busy for more than a week
.
Now here, more than 20,000 hectares of hybrid rice can be planted, which has double the yield of local varieties.
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Today, from large farms in the United States to the tropical rain forests of Myanmar and the Philippines; from the Indian plateau to the African savannah.
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there is the fragrance of Chinese hybrid rice
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Hybrid rice has been successfully demonstrated in more than 40 countries in Asia, Africa, and along the “Belt and Road”, and has been widely promoted in more than 10 countries
.

Nowadays, in the harvest season of each year, rice breeders can "please see the thousand waves of rice seedlings", and Yuan Longping's dream of "being in the shade under the grass" has become their coveted pursuit
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