The wheat harvesting from south to north across the country has arrived in Shaanxi.

For several days in a row, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University (hereinafter referred to as "Xinong") has repeatedly attracted attention due to the "wheat harvest".

Organizing 3,000 students to practice wheat harvest is a Western agricultural tradition. This year, it was questioned by netizens that "the freshman uprooted wheat and did not understand agricultural common sense."

On June 16, the participating teachers of the three summer wheat harvests of Xinong introduced to the Beijing News reporter that the three summer wheat harvests of Xinong have been harvested for more than 80 years each year. The main purpose is not only to cultivate students' understanding of field crop breeding, but also to harvest scientific research materials. "Uprooting" is to protect the integrity of the plant, and it is also a requirement of the teachers to the students.

It is in these "uprooted" plants that Xinong has bred many excellent new wheat varieties.

Sinoner

Who has confiscated wheat?

　　In recent days, the video of 3,000 students receiving wheat from Northwest A&F University has gone viral.

Some netizens praised this as a "university class in the wheat field", and some netizens questioned the school hype, "Is it cutting wheat or pulling wheat? How to pull it out?"

　　But for the students of Xinong, the wheat harvest in three summers is a common thing in memory. "Xinong er, who has confiscated wheat?" Xiao Zhang, a student from Xinong who has graduated for five years, told reporters that the wheat harvest in three summers is The farm training tradition of Xinong, during the summer harvest period every year, the school will organize freshmen to harvest the wheat in the experimental field 15 minutes away from the campus. "Before we go to the ground, the teachers and the seniors and sisters who lead the team will also train us to'uproot'. It’s actually a requirement for wheat harvest to ensure the integrity of the plant. If it’s a show, I’m really sorry for my tanned arm in the experimental field.”

　　Li Xuejun is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Northwest A&F University. Since 1994, he has been engaged in the research and practice of wheat genetic breeding.

He told the Beijing News reporter that he was one of the leading teachers and a participant in the three summer wheat harvesting practices of Xinong.

Li Xuejun said that in addition to freshmen from various departments, undergraduates majoring in agronomy will also participate in all aspects of the wheat harvest depending on their grades.

"This is an'important cognition compulsory course' for the students of Xi'an agriculture after entering the university. On the one hand, we hope to cultivate the students' hard-working spirit and the feelings of knowing and loving agriculture. On the other hand, we also hope that they are more familiar with field crop breeding. Have basic cognition and learning, and better understand the difficulty of cultivating new varieties and the importance of saving food."

Bundle collection

It’s "pear wheat" instead of "cut wheat"

　　As teachers Xiao Zhang and Li Xuejun said, uprooting wheat at harvest is the teacher's requirement for students.

In fact, the students are not using sickles, but small shovels for field work.

"Of course, shovel is occasionally used. Some places in the fields are relatively dry, so a small shovel will come in handy. The students will dust the soil from the roots and collect them in bundles."

　　A reporter from the Beijing News noticed that almost every stalk of wheat that was bundled had brightly colored wool on the stalks. Li Xuejun told reporters that this was a mark made by teachers and graduate students in the wheat field in advance, "We are For breeding, it is necessary to select excellent individual plants in advance and tie red lines to allow undergraduates to pull out individual plants in a targeted manner. This is also an important practical cognitive process for their high school biology courses."

　　Why is the wheat uprooted when harvesting?

"This is to ensure the integrity of a single wheat plant." Li Xuejun further explained that wheat, like rice, is a tiller crop. Their reproduction coefficient is very high. A seed planted in the previous year will be used in the second year. There are many ears and several grains, and what the students and teachers do is to check the degree of tillering of each individual plant.

　　In the test field, less than 20 meters away from the wheat field, is the indoor workshop of the students.

Many students sit together, screening and recording individual plants with different degrees of ear formation; on the other hand, there are students who are measuring the individual plant height of wheat, because plant height is closely related to the lodging resistance of wheat; at the door, a single plant threshing The machine was on a busy schedule. The threshed seeds of each individual plant were individually packed in an envelope bag. The students also further screened the seeds by observing the fullness, color, keratin rate and other factors of the seeds.

Agronomy students will complete the whole process of screening, observation, recording, threshing, and re-screening here.

Uprooted

It is the basis for breeding individual plant selection

　　Li Xuejun said that breeding is a continuous process of "selecting the best from the best". Only in this way can good varieties be bred to contribute to agriculture and increase farmers' income.

He sometimes feels that the workplace is also like a "Chinese medicine shop"—the wheat that has not yet been sorted is hung on the roof beams, and there are bags of kraft paper bags in the box with dew kernels, and those are pulled back by the children. The individual wheat plants are like "medicinal materials" that have been carefully collected.

　　To a certain extent, these individual wheat plants are indeed "medicine primers" for wheat breeding.

　　The Beijing News reporter learned that Northwest A&F University has been committed to wheat genetic breeding for a long time. Scientists represented by Academician Zhao Hongzhang, Academician Li Zhensheng, and Researcher Ning Kun have cultivated Bima 1, Aifeng 3, and Xiaoyan 6. A large number of excellent wheat varieties represented by Shannong 7859 have made great contributions to improving my country's wheat production capacity and ensuring national food security.

The wheat varieties bred by Xinong have led the four generations of varieties in the Huanghuai wheat area in the history of New China.

　　Li Xuejun said that in recent years, focusing on the needs of agricultural supply-side reform and green development, the school has cultivated 10 new varieties of high-quality, high-yield, and disease-resistant state-approved varieties such as Xinong 979 and Xinong 511, which have been widely promoted in the Huanghuai wheat area. .

Among them, Xinong 979 has planted 150 million mu in total, and won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award in 2019; Xinong 511 has outstanding stress resistance, such as scab, stripe rust, and early spring cold, and is the first batch of green disease-resistant varieties.

The "Xinong" series of varieties are well-known in the Huanghuai wheat region for "high-quality, strong gluten, green and disease-resistant", which has strongly promoted the technological progress and disciplinary development in the field of wheat breeding in my country, and guaranteed national food security.

It can be said that every achievement and award of Xi Nong on wheat is actually inseparable from the uprooted wheat at the annual summer harvest.

　Respond to misunderstandings

Understandable hope more attention

　　The work of agricultural training and wheat harvesting has been passed down to Xinong for more than 80 years.

Li Xuejun himself is also a student of the Western Agriculture. He studied in the Department of Agriculture of the Western Agriculture in the 1990s. He still remembers how his classmates and teachers were busy in the wheat fields. "At that time, we worked longer than the current students, at least Staying in the fields for a week will participate in all aspects of the wheat harvest."

　　Li Xuejun said that the little bit of wheat harvest in the three summers is a precious memory embedded in the time of every student in Xi'an University.

Of course, these memories must also include the steamed buns made of Xinong 979 and other wheat varieties in the Xinong canteen, and the red watermelons and cherries independently selected by the school... "These are the results of our scientific research. We not only let the students We want to practice labor, and more importantly, we want them to experience the joy of harvesting results after labor, so that they can have more feelings and beliefs in agriculture."

　　Li Xuejun believed that this misunderstanding was understandable by netizens a few days ago about the "school show". "From the perspective of cognition, this actually reflects that many friends are not clear and do not understand the concepts and methods of agricultural breeding. We hope Through these concerns, we will do some popular science to let everyone know more about the work of agricultural crop breeding and the difficulty of agricultural workers."

　　Beijing News reporter Tian Jiexiong