Chinese rice should not seek high quality at the expense of yield.

"there are more than 1 billion mu of saline-alkali land in the country that do not grow crops, and there are tens of millions of mu of tidal flat. If it is used to popularize 100 million mu of sea rice, 300kg per mu, the income will be increased by 30 billion kg, which is equivalent to the rice output of Hunan Province." Yuan Longping, the "father of hybrid rice" and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said in Beijing that seawater rice has a bright future when attending the 2016 World Congress on Life Sciences.

A small goal: 300 kg per mu of sea rice

According to media reports, the Qingdao Sea Rice Research and Development Center was established a few days ago at the International Academician Port, Licang District, Qingdao. The first national sea rice research and development center in China, with Yuan Longping as director and chief scientist, plans to achieve the goal of exceeding 200 kilograms of sea rice per mu within three years.

However, Yuan Longping's "small target" is 300 kilograms. He said: growing rice requires fertilization, irrigation, and control of diseases and insect pests. At present, the yield of semi-wild marine rice is not high, with a yield of only about 100 kilograms per mu. Farmers cannot even recover the cost of planting, and their enthusiasm is not high. However, if the yield can be increased to 300 kg per mu, the benefit will be achieved. The key to popularizing seawater rice is to improve its salt tolerance concentration, which is divided into two routes in breeding: one is conventional breeding, which transfers the characteristics of salt tolerance to high-yielding varieties, and the other is molecular technology. the salt-resistant genes were cloned and transferred to high-yielding varieties.

A major premise: do not seek quality at the expense of output

Yuan Longping is the father of "hybrid rice", but some people think that hybrid rice is not of high quality, and many consumers prefer foreign rice.

"it turns out that some people have an one-sided view of hybrid rice, thinking that high yield is not good quality, and it is true that some hybrid rice used to be of average quality. However, it should be noted that in the last century, the first thing to solve was the problem of food and clothing, and output must be given priority. " Yuan Longping said: now that the living standard has improved, the people are not satisfied with enough to eat well, and we have also changed our strategy to achieve both high yield and high quality, but there is a premise that we do not seek high quality at the expense of output.

Yuan Longping stressed: China has a large population and less arable land per capita, and we should have high yield and high quality, not low yield and high quality, otherwise everyone will go hungry.

A realized wish: a yield of 1000 kg per mu of super rice before the age of 90

In 2012, Yuan Longping said he would strive to achieve the goal of 1000 kilograms per mu of super hybrid rice by the age of 90. At the age of 86 this year, how far is he from his goal?

Yuan Longping said that the target of 1000 kilograms per mu was achieved in 2014. At present, the goal of the fifth phase of super rice is to achieve a yield of 16 tons per hectare, that is, 1067 kilograms per mu.