The research team of researcher Xie Qi of the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has cooperated with many domestic scientific research institutions and universities to find that the main alkali tolerance gene AT1 can significantly increase the yield of sorghum, rice, wheat, corn, millet and other crops on saline-alkali land, and has great application prospects in the comprehensive utilization of improved saline-alkali land. This scientific research result was published in the international academic journal Science on March 3, Beijing time.
The scientific research team composed of the Institute of Genetics and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other units used sorghum originating from the barren land of central Africa as an experimental material, and used mixed alkali research methods to adjust the alkalinity for experiments, and through genome-wide big data association analysis, the main alkali tolerance gene AT1 was found, which was homologous to the grain shape regulatory gene GS3 of rice, revealing for the first time the molecular mechanism of crop alkali tolerance.
Xie Qi, researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: In general, plants or crops have genome changes and evolution that adapt to the environment. So we collected seed resources from different places, we put it in high-saline land, some can grow, some do not grow, and then these sorghum have genomic data, and the genomic data is then linked together through calculation, saline resistance and non-salinity resistance, a comparison is found that there is a gene mutation, so this is how to find out from sorghum that this gene is related to alkali resistance.
On the basis of theoretical breakthroughs, researchers carried out practical research on salinity-tolerant breeding and production of sorghum, and field experiments in Pingluo saline-alkali land in Ningxia showed that the utilization of AT1 gene could increase sorghum grain yield by 20.1% and silage biomass by nearly 30.5%. The researchers further used the AT1 gene to improve the salinity tolerance of major grass crops, such as rice, wheat, corn, millet, etc. Years of experiments in the Da'an saline-alkali land of Jilin showed that rice yield could increase by 22.4%-27.8%, and millet yield increased by 19.5% in Pingluo saline-alkali land in Ningxia, and the modification of AT1 gene could also significantly enhance the survival rate of maize in saline-alkali land.
According to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, as of 2015, more than 10 billion hectares of salinized soils in the world could not be effectively used due to excessive salinity, of which alkaline soils accounted for about 60% of salinized soils. Researchers predict that if 20% of the world's saline-alkali lands use this gene, at least 2 million tons of food could be increased globally every year, thereby increasing crop productivity in saline-alkali lands.
Xie Qi, researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences: Our country has another 15.18 billion mu of saline-alkali land, which is indispensable compared to our <>.<> billion mu of arable land.
(CCTV News Client, CCTV Reporter, Shuai Junquan, Chu Erjia, He Xueguo)