The Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the outside world seem to be two different worlds.
The Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences is located in Zhongguancun, Haidian District, surrounded by high-rise buildings. However, the academy's buildings are relatively low, and inside there is a 79-hectare experimental farm.
A 79-hectare experimental farm in Haidian District, where one hectare equals 10,000 square meters, is simply too extravagant.
However, there were very few staff members inside; the number only increased after Jiang Yan arrived. The elderly residents were surprised by the large number of unfamiliar faces.
After his last conversation with Jiang Yan, Dong Wenxu realized that the seeds Jiang Yan had picked out did seem a bit strange, and he began to take an interest in his work.
He used to work based on orders and discipline, but now he works out of interest.
Later, the Agricultural Research Institute transferred about a hundred more people to their team. Dong Wenxu discovered that anyone with even a little research experience in agriculture and seeds had been transferred there.
Jiang Yan's team already has more members than many researchers from other institutes under the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
With more people, many tasks can be delegated, and many tasks that were originally scheduled to be postponed can be brought forward.
As one of the first to arrive, Dong Wenxu became the team's liaison, and of course, he still had to do the work.
Today's work aims to understand specific modules in the developmental stages of genetically modified soybeans, including hormone signaling pathways and regulators of transcription factors.
"You guys are responsible for doing the transcriptome analysis, and then Lao Zhao, you create a two-dimensional dataset from the materials they analyzed."
"Then we will conduct pairwise comparisons to build a dynamic gene network platform to facilitate subsequent soybean seed gene analysis."
"At the same time, we also recently identified the co-expressed gene modules and hub gene modules for each module."
Dong Wenxu and the researchers said.
Research on soybeans has been ongoing, and the whole genome of the Williams82 soybean variety was sequenced abroad in 2010.
Foreign seed giants are far ahead of China in the development of genetically modified seeds.
Jiang Yan's team, on the other hand, has a strategy of using special abilities to achieve a breakthrough.
They don't need to sequence each gene individually or use genome-scale technologies like microarrays and cDNA sequencing, which have already been used to isolate genes and reveal regulatory networks.
They do not need these genomic methods to identify key genetic bottlenecks that manipulate the number and size of soybean seeds.
They only need to find the gene mutation fragments in the seeds selected by Jiang Yan and determine what desirable traits these fragments contribute.
Then, through technical means, all the superior traits are combined into one seed, and this seed is the seed they finally cultivate.
It would take Monsanto five to ten years and hundreds of researchers to develop this, but Jiang Yan led a team of about a hundred people to conduct research on seeds of dozens of crops at the same time, and developed it in just six months.
Jiang Yan was deeply impressed by the efficiency of seed cultivation brought about by the "Magic Brain".
If he had had this technology back then, he would have cultivated even better hybrid rice long ago.
During this period, Jiang Yan mainly focused on improving hybrid rice, and has cultivated hybrid rice and seawater rice that are of higher quality and better meet market needs.
In fact, the advantages of hybrid rice have been declining in recent years, from nearly 80% of the planting area to 50% in recent years.
In particular, the planting area has been declining in the last two years. In 2019, the planting area was 1.38 million mu, a decrease of 18% compared to 2018. In 2020, the planting area was 1.15 million mu, a further decrease of 17%.
Over the years, conventional rice has been making progress, but hybrid rice does not have a significant advantage over conventionally bred rice, and the progress of hybrid rice has not been fast enough.
In terms of economic benefits, conventional varieties are even slightly better, because conventional varieties have lower yields but sell for higher prices.
Therefore, Jiang Yan further optimized the most commonly planted hybrid rice on the market in terms of taste, yield, and fertilizer absorption rate.
The cultivated seawater rice also fully meets the requirements. Both of these methods involve extensive gene mutation, screening for superior varieties, and then hybridizing superior traits to produce the best seeds.
"We can send someone to collect the relevant research data and seeds now, and we can start preparing for promotion."
......
At Huaguo Seed Group Co., Ltd., they received seeds sent by the Ministry of Agriculture, which were said to be the latest research results from the Agricultural Research Institute.
"This is something the Academy of Agricultural Sciences just developed recently. It can produce 600 kilograms of seawater rice per mu in saline-alkali soil with a salt content of 3%."
"We hope you will conduct verification before large-scale promotion!" The person in charge of delivering the seeds claimed to be from the Ministry of Agriculture, but his actual identity was from the Bureau of Abnormal Affairs.
Chen Jingrui, the deputy general manager of the seed group, widened his eyes: "Three percent? Are you sure you didn't misread it? Isn't it three per thousand?"
The other party answered with certainty: "That's right, it's three percent."
"Six hundred kilograms per mu?"
Chen Jingrui has an agronomic background and worked in the fields many years ago. He knows about seawater rice. After repeatedly confirming the information, he picked up the seeds and thought, "Who the hell launched this satellite?"
"Could this be a ploy to fool the ministry?"
"If this is that amazing, it should have been on the news this morning."
Previously, even the best seawater rice in China could only maintain high yields per mu in saline-alkali land with a salt content of 0.6%.
Because the salinity of China's low-lying areas, such as Northeast China, is around 7 parts per thousand, while in high-lying areas, such as Guangdong and coastal regions, the salinity can be as high as 16 to 20 parts per thousand.
Therefore, although the seawater rice developed previously has been widely reported by the media as a breakthrough, it is still far from being widely promoted in reality.
There is a difference between the researchers' meticulous cultivation in the experimental environment and large-scale sowing in reality, not to mention that the experimental environment only supports a salt content of 0.6%.
Chen Jingrui was skeptical about the seeds sent by the ministry. What did three percent mean? It meant that the seeds could be widely used in saline-alkali land all over the country, without any regional differences.
Many places abroad are scrambling to buy the seeds of this seawater rice, if it really yields 600 kilograms per mu and has a salt content of 3%.
The role of seawater rice is not only to increase production, but more importantly, to improve the soil environment. Many abandoned old industrial areas in Europe and America can be alleviated by large-scale planting of this saline-alkali land.
At the same time, many ecologically fragile saline-alkali lands can be improved to grow more economically viable crops.
Chen Jingrui sent the seeds to the laboratory of China Seed Group, asking them to conduct experiments in a simulated saline-alkali soil environment to accelerate ripening. He needed to get the answer as soon as possible.
If true, the economic benefits would be substantial, potentially propelling Huaguo Seed Company to new heights this year.
Now that state-owned enterprises have undergone reforms, many things are linked to performance, and central state-owned enterprises are no exception.
Everyone needs to find work and opportunities to make a profit; without profit, nothing matters.
Of course, state-owned enterprises like Huaguo Seed Company, which are positioned as public welfare enterprises, have lower requirements than commercial state-owned enterprises.
The lower requirements here refer to the lower profit assessment requirements set by the state for them. For example, the profit requirement for public welfare state-owned enterprises is 100 million yuan or even no profit, while the profit requirement for commercial state-owned enterprises is 1 billion yuan.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
