Rice celebrities bring rice that "drinks" sea water.

A few days ago, the roar of the harvester broke the tranquillity of the experimental base of Binzhou Red Sea Farm in Shandong Beihai Economic Development Zone. after more than 160 days of gestation, more than 300 varieties of seawater rice for adaptive planting ushered in the harvest period. "this year's sea rice has fully adapted to seawater irrigation with a salinity of 5 ‰, of which the yield per mu of 'Haidao 86' has increased from 20 jin last year to 200 jin, and the panicle setting rate has increased by 35 times over the previous year." The result of such a trial made Zhang Haibo, general manager of the farm, a little overjoyed.

? Either find fresh water or let the rice "drink" sea water.

Beihai Economic Development Zone is located at the mouth of the Yellow River. There are only two freshwater systems in the region, Xiaokai River and Haojiahe River. It is difficult to solve the problem of rice irrigation by relying solely on regional fresh water. "although there are abundant water sources in the Beihai area, they are all seawater with high salinity and cannot be used for irrigation. Either find a rich source of fresh water, or find rice that can 'drink' sea water. " There are only two solutions to the problem facing Zhang Haibo.

Here's your chance. On February 7, 2015, Beihai Economic Development Zone docked with the International Rice Capital Research Institute of Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice in the world, and established the International Rice Capital Beihai Research Institute, which carried out sea rice planting experiments and devoted itself to the introduction and development of sea rice varieties. The experimental base of this research institute is the Red Sea Farm of Zhang Haibo.

With the gathering of famous rice experts, Honghai Farm suddenly became lively, and more than 300 varieties of marine rice from more than 10 rice research institutions have settled here one after another. The goals of these scientific research institutions are basically the same, that is, to carry out adaptive planting experiments such as saline-alkali tolerance, yield improvement, variety hybridization and environmental adaptation, and to cultivate new varieties of sea rice.

Salinity of irrigation water for test rice

Up to 7 ‰

"according to the observation and the sampling test in the previous period, the results of this year's test are satisfactory, and the yield and saline-alkali tolerance have been greatly improved."

According to Chen Risheng, the main factor restricting the growth of rice in Beihai soil is the high content of sodium chloride. This area is the alluvial soil layer of the Yellow River basin, and the soil is rich in nutrients and contains a lot of trace elements, but the content of sodium chloride in the surface soil is too high because of seawater backflow and artificial aquaculture in previous years. That is to say, the land in the North Sea belongs to saline land, not the traditional saline-alkali land. This problem can be solved completely by traditional fresh water drainage methods, reaching the scope that sea rice growth can bear.

In this year's sea rice planting experiment, there is a new discovery that even surprised Zhang Haibo and experts. In the adaptive planting experimental field of "Haidao 86", there was a cluster of sea rice with slightly short height, stout plant height, high tillering rate and full grain, which attracted Zhang Haibo's attention, and they made a special mark. The tillering rate of common seawater rice varieties is high and the panicle setting rate is low. However, this cluster is obviously different, and it is confirmed by expert observation that it is a new variety produced by natural hybridization in daily cultivation of sea rice. This can be said to be a major harvest of adaptive planting experiments in recent years, and they plan to name it "Beihai Dao No.1".

The Beihai Economic Development Zone will take the sea rice planting base developed by Honghai Farm as the center, and with the support of the International Rice Capital (Beihai) Research Institute, integrate all kinds of rice resources such as Beihai rice, seawater rice, super rice, international rice and so on. Efforts will be made to create a complete rice research base. After successful breeding, new varieties will be sown in more than 10,000 mu of sea water rice fields in Beihai Economic Development Zone. It was popularized in the coastal areas of "Bohai granary" and "Yellow Triangle". Finally, new varieties of seawater rice with stronger adaptability to China's coastal growth environment were selected to promote the innovation and upgrading of rice industry chain in an all-round way. (according to Science and Technology Daily)