Accelerate the cultivation of diversified varieties and promote the high-quality development of the industry——

Excellent varieties make the people's table richer (deep reading, seed industry revitalization in action)

Our reporter Yu Jingxian and Chang Qin Fan Haotian

This year's Central Document No. 1 proposed to establish a big food concept and accelerate the construction of a diversified food supply system that integrates grain and feeding, integrates agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, and combines plants, animals, and microorganisms.

From eating well to eating healthy and hearty, good seeds are indispensable. How to accelerate the cultivation of diversified varieties to meet the needs of the escalating people's table? The reporter conducted an interview.

"Vegetable basket" has more new varieties

At 8 a.m., in the Hanjiawan Aquaculture Base on the shore of Liangzi Lake in Jiangxia District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province, as soon as the automatic feeder was turned on, fish swarmed. Farmer Han Ming'an said that the batch of Wuchang fish is expected to be on the market in August and September this year, and the profit per mu is expected to reach 8,9 yuan.

Wuchang fish scientific name group head bream, commonly known as bream, delicious meat, rich in nutrition, is one of the important freshwater farmed fish in China. "Due to inbreeding and other factors, the germplasm of the bream in various places has degraded, the growth rate has slowed down, and the body shape tends to be short and thick." Wang Weimin, a professor at the College of Fisheries of Huazhong Agricultural University, said that since 2008, the scientific research team has cooperated with Yangxin County Bairong Aquatic Seed Co., Ltd. to use family selection, group selection and fish paternity testing technology to select and breed for four consecutive generations, and tested in many places across the country, and finally successfully selected and bred a new variety of tuantou bream "Huahai No. 2017" with strong disease resistance and fast growth speed in 1.

"The new variety can grow to one and a half pounds in more than a year, the meat is thicker, and it is also resistant to transportation, and it can be staggered one to two months in advance." Han Ming'an said that at present, the base has raised more than 5,9 bream, and last year the net profit from the sale of fresh fish was more than <>,<> yuan.

The selection and breeding of high-quality aquatic products allows more fresh fish and shrimp to "jump" on the table. In the whole country, a total of 266 new aquatic varieties have been announced, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has also launched a national aquatic breeding joint research plan this year to strengthen the security of China's aquatic seed sources.

China is a major producer and consumer of edible fungi. Li Feng, director of the Institute of Edible Mushrooms, Xinxiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Henan Province, introduced that in order to adapt to the production and market consumption demand of edible fungi, the team has selected and bred more than 60 excellent new varieties of oyster mushroom and white spirit mushroom "new family" series through hybridization and molecular means, and has obtained the protection of new plant variety rights from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

In the Jitun Edible Mushroom Planting Professional Cooperative in Huixian City, Xinxiang City, mushrooms open the thick stacked umbrella cover. "This variety is called 'Oyster Mushroom 108', which is a new variety cultivated by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, not only the shape of the flowers is good-looking, but also the conversion rate is high, one pound of dry material produces one pound of two or two mushrooms, and five stubbles can be harvested in half a year." Wang Linning, chairman of the cooperative, said that relying on the variety support and technology of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the cooperative produces nearly 300 million jin of edible fungi on a large scale every year, mainly sold to Beijing, Henan and other places, with a total income of more than <> million yuan.

The increasingly rich "vegetable basket" is behind the excellent varieties that have been updated from generation to generation. Last year, four national edible fungus germplasm resource banks were selected as the first batch of national agricultural microbial germplasm resource banks, which provided strong support for the preservation and utilization of high-quality fungus resources and the expansion of edible fungus industry. In terms of vegetables, at present, the coverage rate of major vegetable varieties in China's main producing areas has reached 4%, and the production coverage rate of domestic varieties is 96%, and the support capacity of vegetable breeding to the industry has been continuously enhanced.

Innovate the cooperation mechanism between industry, education and research

March red, concubine smile, white sugar poppy, glutinous rice dumpling... In Hainan, Guangxi, Guangdong and other major lychee-producing provinces, various varieties of lychee have been listed one after another. "In the past, a single variety was listed in a bunch, but now it is a competition of multiple high-quality varieties." Li Weicai, deputy director of the Litchi Longan Research Center of the South Asian Tropical Crops Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, said that the continuous innovation of varieties is mainly due to the construction of the national lychee industry technology system.

In 2007, the construction of the national modern agricultural industrial technology system was launched. Up to now, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the Ministry of Finance have built 50 modern agricultural industrial technology systems such as rice, corn, wheat, soybeans and dairy cattle, covering nearly 200 kinds of agricultural products, deploying innovation chains around the whole industrial chain, organizing and bringing together more than 800,2700 experts from more than <> units across the country, focusing on major industrial issues, conducting research, integration, testing and demonstration of common technologies and key technologies, providing strong support for accelerating the pace of agricultural scientific and technological innovation and agricultural modernization, and achieving remarkable results.

"Relying on the industrial technology system, we will open up all links such as breeding, cultivation to postharvest preservation and processing, and promote lychee breeding to enter a period of rapid development." Li Weicai said that in recent years, various litchi research units from Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Fujian and Yunnan have carried out lychee seed selection and hybrid breeding, and bred more than 30 new lychee varieties. In the promotion of varieties, colleges and universities and scientific research institutes give full play to the advantages of variety breeding and cultivation technology, rely on enterprises to establish new variety production demonstration bases, lead large planters to establish production demonstration gardens, guide ordinary fruit farmers to change to excellent varieties of lychees, and continuously improve planting efficiency and industrial market competitiveness.

In the Huang-Huaihai area, from the high-quality bread wheat "Jinan 17" to the "Jimai 44" that set a record for strong gluten wheat in Shandong Province last year... The cumulative planting area of the "Jimai" series of varieties reached 6 million mu, increasing the output of wheat by more than 600 billion jin.

In China, the birth of an excellent variety of a major crop needs to go through multiple links such as variety cultivation, regional experiment, production test, approval, demonstration and promotion. "To promote the accelerated transformation of fine seeds, industry-university-research cooperation is an effective way." Yang Zaidong, director of the project department of Shandong Luyan Agricultural Seed Co., Ltd., said. In recent years, Luyan Company and Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences have carried out in-depth cooperation in R&D platform construction, talent team construction, resource sharing, etc., and innovated the cooperation mechanism between science and technology enterprises.

"In this mechanism, the two sides open up channels to allow wheat breeding researchers in institutes to join the enterprise part-time and part-time, and the enterprise provides stable scientific research funds for the breeding team, and the breeding team will enjoy the benefits of variety transformation after the variety is approved." Yang Zaidong introduced that at present, the company has cooperated in the selection and promotion of 17 high-yield and high-quality wheat varieties such as "Jinan 5", and cultivated 44 new wheat varieties with independent intellectual property rights, such as "Jimai 7".

Promoting the revitalization of the seed industry and supporting excellent enterprises is an important way. Since 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has selected 3 advantageous enterprises from more than 270,<> crop, livestock and aquatic seed enterprises to build a national seed enterprise formation that "solves problems, makes up for shortcomings, and strengthens advantages", and provides corresponding policy support.

Good varieties support big industries

At the beginning of this year, a batch of high-efficiency and high-quality new varieties of food saving and disease resistance passed the examination. Among them, Dumont sheep have the characteristics of fast growth and development, high meat production performance, and Wufoan No. 10 meat duck is suitable for the "rice-duck-shrimp" comprehensive breeding mode. "The 15 new varieties approved this time have the characteristics of high efficiency, high quality, food saving and disease resistance, which meet the needs of industrial development." Yu Fuqing, director of the Livestock and Poultry Resources Division of the National Animal Husbandry Station, said.

A good variety can support an industry. Ridge raising, mulching, seedlings... In Huanglinshu Village, Wanhe Town, Suixian County, Hubei Province, Dr. Gao Shenghua of the Institute of Cash Crops of the Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences and several agricultural technicians guided villagers to transplant pepper seedlings. On the well-defined mulch, tender green pepper seedlings thrive tall.

"This variety is called 'Pepper Shuailiang', which is obtained after 10 years of research and breeding by using hybrid advantages, molecular marker-assisted selection and polygenic polymerization technologies. Not only is it spicy and fragrant, the fruit is colorful, but it also has good resistance and yield. Wang Fei, director of the Institute of Cash Crops of the Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, introduced.

"After the introduction of 'Pepper Shuailiang' last year, the pepper base ushered in a bumper harvest, with an output value of more than 2,4 yuan per mu. The base has also absorbed more than 300 migrant workers and paid a total of more than 500 million yuan in wages, which not only ensures the supply of raw materials, but also drives farmers to increase income. Li Yongjiang, head of the pepper planting base of Pinyuan (Suizhou) Modern Agricultural Development Co., Ltd., said that this year the company is ready to expand the planting area of new pepper varieties to 5000,<> mu.

The industrial chain is extended and the upstream and downstream are linked, and more high-quality special varieties are promoted to the market. In Heilongjiang Province Zhongnongfa Wudalianchi Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd., the soybean seed processing production line in the workshop runs at high speed. "High-protein varieties are suitable for raw bean sprouts and beaten soy milk, high arabinose content is suitable for soy sauce, and high water-soluble protein content is suitable for tofu..." Speaking of soybean varieties, the company's general manager Li Wenguo is like a treasure.

"Now downstream food companies purchase special high-quality soybean varieties for processing, not only looking at purity and moisture, but also at germination rate and clarity, which means using seed standards to produce special grain." Li Wenguo introduced that at present, the company's soybean business is divided into two parts: seeds and special grains, supplying 188 varieties such as "five beans 9" and "denke 26" to the market, with an annual sales volume of more than 2,<> tons of seeds.

"As a major county in the country's soybean seeding, we must adhere to seed industry innovation and provide source living water for the high-quality development of the industry." Wang Tao, director of the Agriculture and Rural Bureau of Wudalianchi City, introduced that there are currently 15 seed enterprises in the city, and through cooperation with a number of scientific research institutions, national leading enterprises and advanced enterprises have been continuously introduced, and soybean varieties and quality have been greatly improved.

Coordinator: Yang Shuobi (People's Daily)