This year is the starting year for speeding up the construction of an agricultural power. To build an agricultural power, the weapon is science and technology. Seeds, as the "chips" of agriculture, are particularly important. According to the latest release of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, China has launched the implementation of the seed industry revitalization action for three years, and has achieved phased results, and the seed supply guarantee capacity of national seed production counties and regional improved seed breeding bases has increased to 75%.
Breakthrough: The supply capacity has been increased from 70% to 75%.
In China, corn is not only an important grain variety, but also the main animal feed and industrial raw material. Increasing yield is an important direction of maize breeding in recent years.
In the Seed Industry Building in the Yangling Agricultural High-tech Demonstration Zone in Shaanxi Province, breeding experts are testing the purity of a new high-yield and disease-resistant corn variety that is about to go on the market, which is also the last step for this new corn variety to enter the promotion and planting stage.
Tang Xinrui, Scientist of Molecular Testing Center, Yangling Technology Center, Sinochem Syngenta Group: Because all of our commercial varieties need to be determined about their purity before they are marketed. Only varieties that meet the purity requirements can be marketed, which is also a process for us to check the quality of the entire corn seed.
Breeding experts told reporters that the new corn variety they are testing for purity has a wide range of adaptability and can be popularized and planted in suitable areas in many regions of China, such as northeast, north and northwest. In arid and barren areas, its lush root system makes efficient use of water and fertilizer, helping farmers save water and achieve good harvests.
In 2022, 101 varieties selected here passed the national examination, including 21 new corn varieties, and in 2023, 121 varieties passed the national examination, including 44 new corn varieties. Behind the accelerated cultivation of new varieties is the continuous innovative application of a series of new breeding technologies.
Yang Bingpeng, Head of Trait Integration Center, Yangling Technology Center, Sinochem Syngenta Group: The new breeding technology has also accelerated our entire breeding process. We analyze the data and then select the ones with excellent characteristics and some of the high-potential strains that are put into our testing system throughout the country. Finally, after two to three years of testing, we were able to obtain varieties with high yield, stable yield, and relatively good disease resistance, and bring varieties with excellent characteristics to the market.
It is understood that since the implementation of the seed industry revitalization action in 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has guided many key breakthroughs and landmark achievements in the protection of germplasm resources, major varieties and key technological innovations, and the layout and construction of national seed industry bases. At present, more than 530,000 copies of crop, livestock and poultry and aquatic germplasm resources have been newly collected across the country, and the "national team" of improved seed breeding composed of 216 crop seed production bases and 300 breeding livestock and poultry farms and stations has promoted the increase of seed supply guarantee capacity from 70% to 75%.
Precision: Find a needle in a haystack and cast the net in a redirected direction.
When breeding a breed is selected, it is actually the process of combining the best genes together to select a good and stable gene. In the past, this work was judged and selected by breeding experts through the field performance of crops, and it was quite accidental. With the development of science and technology, scientists can now speed up their selection in a more precise and efficient way: molecular testing. To put it simply, molecular testing is to determine directly from the genetic level whether a crop material has the traits desired by breeding experts.
In the Yangling Agricultural High-tech Demonstration Zone, the high-throughput molecular detection platform here can generate about 400,000 data points per day. A data point represents the characteristics of a certain piece of DNA in a corn seed.
Tang Xinrui, Scientist of the Molecular Testing Center of Yangling Technology Center of Sinochem Syngenta Group: In the past, our breeding experts might need to collect some required traits in the field. This often takes a long time, and it can take a crop season to collect these data. Now on our side, it may only take one to two weeks to get the desired trait through our molecular markers, or some of its characteristics. This has greatly accelerated the breeding process and the speed of our breeding.
In addition to the efficiency master such as the high-throughput detection platform, there is another high-precision detection platform that can record the reaction of corn DNA in each round, and finally accurately tell breeders about the corn DNA.
Using the data obtained by such molecular detection technology, coupled with the data obtained in the field, the best model can be developed to screen out the "top students" from hundreds of thousands of breeding materials, and the cost is greatly saved and the speed is accelerated through DNA detection technology.
Speed: Break through the seasonal restrictions and rewrite the traditional breeding rhythm.
At the Yangling Breeding Technology Center test base of Sinochem Syngenta Group, there is a greenhouse. Here, maize breeding can reach the level of four to five generations a year, which is 25 times more.
The staff told reporters that this automated environmental control greenhouse covers an area of 12,000 square meters. At the top of the greenhouse, you can see rows of small purple light bulbs lit up, which are synthesized according to the red-orange and blue-violet light required for the growth of corn.
Corn is a light-loving crop, and it has its own preferred spectrum, with corn preferring red-orange and blue-violet light over other light. According to the needs of corn growth and the change of external natural light, the dynamic adjustment of light intensity can be realized.
Niu Ruilong, Scientist of Character Integration Center, Yangling Technology Center of Sinochem Syngenta Group: In order to meet the normal growth of corn throughout the year, we will adjust some parameters of its greenhouse, including temperature, humidity and light intensity. Depending on the season, we will have corresponding parameters to guide.
The reporter noticed that from time to time, there are researchers here who select seedlings with good potential traits for transplanting through the first breeding molecular marker screening technology. Researchers told us that about 100 seedlings can be selected out of about 1,000 germs, and about 10 seedlings can be transplanted from 100 seedlings. With the help of new technologies, the best students are being screened at every stage of corn growth to help breeders narrow down the target group and more accurately target the desired trait.
In the process of cultivating a seed, from the search for different traits of corn seeds to the cultivation of new varieties, it is the efforts of hundreds of scientists. They start with seeds, and continue to innovate in germplasm resources and breeding technology, so that more seeds can be loaded with "Chinese cores", so that we can hold our jobs more firmly.