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May 11, 2005
Source:
China Daily via
Checkbiotech
Liu Binghua, 61, a researcher with
the
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, will soon be known
as a proud father when a plot of wheat near Beijing's Third Ring
Road is harvested this June.
His child, "super wheat," a new
breed with a yield of 15 per cent per unit more than an average
wheat yield.
If successful, it could eventually lead to doubling of China's
present per-hectare wheat yield. But Liu admitted that they are
still working to improve the taste of the flour made of such
wheat.
As the nation grows increasingly alarmed by the international
catchwords "food security," it has never ceased its efforts in
grinding out super-yield crops to feed its growing population.
The efforts have partly paid off just as the "father of hybrid
rice" Yuan Longping developed varieties that have fed nearly
half of the country's population.
"Yuan and Liu's achievements can be called real breakthroughs in
solving China's grain problems," said Liu Jian, a former
vice-minister of agriculture.
Following rice, wheat is the nation's second most important
staple food, with an annual output accounting for 22 per cent of
the country's total grain yield. It is widely grown in northern
and southern areas of China.
Led by Liu, the team from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural
Sciences found last summer that the highest per-hectare yield of
the high-yield wheat was 10.7 tons, nearly 6.5 tons more than
China's average per-hectare yield for wheat last year.
"If the high-yield seeds were to be widely used in
wheat-planting regions of China, the country's grain security
could be greatly ensured," said Liu, who has been working on
breeding wheat varieties for more than two decades.
Now, Liu is waiting for a national assessment to officially
label his wheat varieties with the moniker of "super wheat" by
June, the season when his wheat is to be reaped. He expects the
yield at his one-mu (0.06 hectare) test field near the Third
Ring Road could surpass 0.5 tons, 0.15 tons to 0.2 tons more
than the average.
"The wheat in other experimental fields nationwide has grown
well and I'm confident our breakthrough is worthy of the title,"
said Liu.
The national scientific criteria for a crop seed to be crowned
with the title of "super" require its per-unit output to be at
least 15 per cent higher than the average.
High yields nationwide
The breakthrough resulted from the
variety named Lunxuan 987, a wheat variety which was
successfully developed by Liu's team in July 1998.
During previous years, his team had been working to improve the
breed, which would see different outputs in areas as weather and
soil conditions varied.
"All the experiments in previous years showed that it was a
really high-yield variety," said Liu, noting that the
experiments were carried out in Jiangsu, Henan provinces and
Beijing during the 1998-2004 period.
Last year's results showed the per-hectare yield of 10.7 tons in
Jiangsu was the highest, followed by 9.1 tons per hectare in
test fields in Changping District of Beijing and almost 10 tons
in Xinxiang of Central China's Henan Province.
Liu expects further progress in his experiments, because he
claims he has found "ideal tools."
Liu's confidence is based on his research that enables him to
find a set of practical and quantitative cyclic wheat breeding
methods and techniques. They can greatly improve wheat
properties such as resistance to lodging and disease, high yield
and quality.
Liu attributed today's achievements to a series of happenstance
and never-ending hard work.
"Generally speaking, I'm lucky because my work has always gone
smoothly," said Liu.
At the turn of 1970s, the government was alarmed by potential
challenges of food security and launched a national campaign to
enhance grain output.
Breakthroughs by Yuan Longping - the "father of hybrid rice" -
were also made under such a historic context.
For wheat breeding, the beginning dates back to 1972, when a
grass-roots agricultural researcher named Gao Zhongli in Taigu
County of Shanxi Province happened to find a stalk of wheat of a
particular genetic variety in a field.
"That's the beginning of our story, and if there was no such a
stalk of wheat, there would be no super wheat variety," said
Liu. "The wheat found by Gao was later named Taigu infertile
wheat because of the complete infertility of its stamen and the
pistil's easy access to pollen.
Liu said the Taigu wheat was, at that stage, the most
satisfactory infertile material for hybrid wheat breeding
because its infertile stamen created opportunities for the
pistil to cross-pollinate with other wheat of better genetic
traits.
"The stalk is really unique in terms of its genetic trait. We
are lucky because we found it in China," said Liu.
Liu found that the next generation of the Taigu variety
consisted of wheat that was half infertile and half fertile. But
they were of the same height and it proved difficult to tell
them apart. Liu then decided to sort infertile from fertile and
he designed a plan to use a genetic marker.
Luck was on Liu's side again because Chinese researchers found
an ideal genetic marker, Aibian I, a brand of wheat only 35
centimetres in height, half of the normal height.
He cross-pollinated the infertile wheat with the short wheat and
a new breed with a short stalk and male infertility was born.
This new generation was called Aibai wheat, which consisted of
infertile and fertile stalks. But the most interesting thing is
that the infertile wheat was identifiable by its low stature,
meaning infertile wheat was shorter than its fertile cousin.
"That's the ideal result," said Liu, adding that Aibai wheat
kept its male sterility, strong stalk and particular look and
became a desirable cyclic screening tool for wheat breeding.
Then Liu's team started rotational screening by planting Aibai
wheat and many other wheat varieties with ideal genetic traits
together and offering chances for them to exchange genes.
Liu said the screening is a process to select "the best out of
the quality varieties."
Lunxuan 987 was one of the products of this process and
incorporated the genetic properties of many wheat breeds. It has
a stalk height of 85 centimetres, features a resistance to
lodging, a powdery mildew and stripe rust and is able to shed
its yellow leaves when it ripens.
"But we are continuously improving its properties, and now we
are trying to make it tolerant to drought," said Liu.
Breeding dedication
Born in 1944 in the countryside of
Central China's Henan Province, Liu said his passion for wheat
breeding originates from childhood memory of his family's
toiling away in hardship.
Liu remembers that when he was a junior middle school student,
his stomach would often have to be satisfied with steamed bread
- there were no vegetables to be had.
In the years before he graduated from senior middle school in
1963, Liu recalled that he was always hungry because of
nationwide grain shortage.
"Unconsciously, I have been on a mission to find solutions to
yield more crops for the nation ever since," said Liu, adding
that starvation happened even in Henan, a staple province for
China's wheat planting.
Two years after graduating from Henan University of Agriculture
in 1968, he became a teacher in the province's Nanyang.
But that didn't end Liu's passion for the study of genetics.
"I read and memorized all the books on genetics I could get
during those years," the scientist said.
In 1979, he started his study for a master's degree at the
Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, where his tutor Deng
Jingyang had been doing genetic research on infertile wheat.
"Actually, I continued his study and made breakthroughs," said
Liu.
Liu was exuberant that the government attached great importance
to his findings and has supported his team in testing the new
variety throughout the nation this year, even in high-altitude
regions such as the Tibet Autonomous Region.
Recently, the Ministry of Finance decided to earmark 30 million
yuan (US$3.6 million) to further improve the high-yield seeds.
"We can improve genetic traits of the variety in line with local
conditions when we plant it in different regions," he added.
Concerns and goal
China feeds 22 per cent of the
world's population on only 7 per cent of the world's arable
land. That means grain security must be placed at the very top
of the government's agenda.
Meanwhile, a series of natural disasters and reductions in the
amount of arable land also have highlighted the urgency of the
problem.
Predications from China Agriculture University have shown that
by 2030 when China will have a population of 1.6 billion the
nation may need as much as 640-720 million tons of grain to feed
its people. Now China produces 450 million tons of grain
annually, and feeds around 1.3 billion people.
Meanwhile, the Agro-Meteorological Institute under the Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences warned that by 2030, grain
production in China might decrease by up to 10 per cent because
of changes in temperature, if effective measures are not taken.
"Those are our long-term problems and concerns that we must
face," said Liu. "The only way out is to increase per-unit yield
of land in production."
The government has taken action. Last week, a national wheat
breeding engineering centre was set up in Xinxiang of Henan
Province.
"Our aim is to make it become an international wheat breeding
centre since the whole world needs high-yield wheat," said Liu.
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