Upgrade the breeding technology toolbox to create a stronger seed industry
Seed Industry Innovation Series Report ②
◎Our reporter Ma Aiping
Seeds are the foundation for agricultural modernization.
On February 21, the "Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Comprehensively Promoting Rural Revitalization and Accelerating Agricultural and Rural Modernization", the No. 1 Central Document of 2021, was released.
In terms of accelerating the modernization of agriculture, the document highlights the deployment of the seed industry's turnaround.
On February 22, at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council, Zhang Taolin, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, emphasized that at present, the world seed industry is ushering in a modern era marked by the integration and development of technologies such as gene editing, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence. The technological revolution of biological breeding requires seizing opportunities, accelerating innovation, and making a good turn of the seed industry, so as to realize the leapfrog development of the seed industry.
my country is still in the era of breeding 3.0
"Seeds are the core of high and stable yields, and the seed industry is the frontier of international scientific and technological competition." Li Jiayang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told a reporter from Science and Technology Daily that the benefits of increased production and income brought by fine seeds will increase. Bigger.
In China, the contribution rate of seed technology to the increase of agricultural production is about 40%, and there is still a lot of room for improvement.
"Without a first-class seed industry, there will be no modernization of agricultural technology. The top priority of international agricultural technology competition is the core materials, major core technologies and major strategic new varieties of the animal and plant seed industry. Breeding technology is the core strategy of the international seed industry giants. The intellectual property rights of gene products focusing on core germplasm have become a powerful weapon for multinational seed companies to maintain their market competitive advantages." Professor Gao Wangsheng of China Agricultural University and dean of the National Academy of Agricultural Science and Technology Strategy said in an interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Daily .
"The development of the seed industry can be divided into four stages, 1.0 era is farm breeding, 2.0 era is hybrid breeding, 3.0 era is molecular breeding, including molecular markers, genetic modification, gene editing, etc., 4.0 era is'biotechnology + artificial intelligence + "Big data information technology' breeding. At present, developed countries have entered the seed industry 4.0 era, and our country is still in the 2.0 to 3.0 era." Wan Jianmin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and vice president of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told the Science and Technology Daily reporter that there is an urgent need to promote Realize the leapfrog development of the seed industry.
"The molecular design breeding in the 3.0 era is based on the whole genome sequence, according to the virtual genome design plan carried out in advance, through the optimization of the best parental genome combination, hybridization and molecular marker selection and other advanced technologies, a large number of beneficial genes are aggregated to cultivate High-yield, high-quality, high-resistance, and high-efficiency new varieties." Li Jiayang said.
Li Jiayang pointed out that compared with traditional breeding techniques, molecular design breeding in the 3.0 era can realize the transition from "experience breeding" to targeted and efficient "precision breeding", which can not only greatly reduce the blindness of conventional breeding, but also greatly reduce the blindness of conventional breeding. Improve breeding efficiency and create new high-yield, high-quality, multi-resistant varieties.
New technology may allow my country's seed industry to achieve overtaking in corners
According to Zhu Jiankang, director of the Shanghai Plant Stress Biology Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and academician of the American Academy of Sciences, if the biological breeding technology is used well, my country can solve the bottleneck problem of the seed industry facing agriculture.
"If we rely on traditional breeding, it will take many years to catch up with the technical level of foreign seed industries, but new breeding techniques can allow us to do it faster." Zhu Jiankang said.
What difficulties does my country face in upgrading the version of breeding technology?
In Zhang Taolin's view, the independent innovation ability of the seed industry is not strong, especially in terms of breeding theory and key core technologies, there is still a big gap between my country and the advanced level.
Gao Wangsheng said that compared with the world, my country's biological seed industry is still in a situation of "more imitation and tracking, less independent innovation, more gene registration, less actual transfer, more published papers and less intellectual property rights, and more seed companies and less innovative enterprises".
In recent years, my country has made certain achievements in basic research on rice breeding.
For example, the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has successfully analyzed the molecular basis of important traits such as rice yield, appearance, column shape, and resistance through the establishment of functional genomics, proteomics, metabolomics and other research platforms, and established the "molecular module" to " The modern biotechnology breeding innovation system of "designed varieties" is at the international leading level as a whole.
Build a new generation of national biological seed industry innovation system
Wan Jianmin said that my country has achieved many world-leading achievements in the research fields of rice functional genome and hybrid rice, but it is still in line with the international advanced level in the mining and utilization of germplasm resources, the application of modern breeding technology, and the selection and promotion of high-quality varieties. distance.
Entering a new stage, in order to continue to promote the high-quality development of the seed industry, it is necessary to concentrate resources and strength to jointly tackle key problems in order to grasp the development initiative.
Gao Wangsheng suggested reorganizing and constructing a new generation of national biological seed industry innovation system, organizing the implementation of national seed industry scientific and technological innovation projects, strengthening original breakthroughs in basic cutting-edge technologies such as gene editing, animal stem cells, and synthetic biology, and cultivating a group of independent intellectual property rights. The core germplasm resources and major strategic new varieties will speed up the application process of scientific and orderly industrialization of genetically modified organisms breeding.
"In the future, we must increase the research and development of core biological breeding technologies and products with independent intellectual property rights, and carry out the industrialized application of biological breeding under the respect of science and strict supervision." Wan Jianmin suggested that we should continue to develop major food crops, specialty crops, and livestock and poultry. Joint research on aquatic breeding will speed up the cultivation of high-yield, high-efficiency, green, high-quality, water-saving and food-saving, suitable machines and feeding, and new varieties for special purposes to meet diversified needs.
At the same time, we will strengthen cutting-edge public welfare research such as the genetic basis of breeding and molecular breeding technology.