Li Zhensheng has been engaged in the research of distant hybridization and chromosome engineering breeding between wheat and thinopyrum repens for a long time, and bred Xiaoyan 4, 5 and 6 series of wheat varieties, and created the blue monomer wheat system and the self-flowering deficient wheat system for the first time, and established a new method for breeding wheat alien substitution lines-deficient backcross breeding method, which laid the foundation for wheat chromosome engineering breeding.
Hunger urged him to take the road of "getting wheat"
"This is Xiaoyan 6, which we cultivated. Look, it's chewy." On the 27th, in his office, Li Zhensheng picked a wheat seed from a wheat specimen, put it neatly on his front teeth, chewed it open and showed it to reporters at the scene.
The glittering and translucent wheat grains attracted a lot of amazement, and Li Zhensheng's eyes showed a proud look. These are high-quality wheat seeds that he and his colleagues have worked hard to cultivate for 2 years. The cumulative extension area is more than 15 million mu, and the yield of wheat is more than 8 billion Jin.
This scientist who is in the company of wheat first embarked on the road of "getting wheat", which came from his early hunger experience.
Li Zhensheng was born in 1931 in the rural area of Zibo. When he was a child, his family was poor, but as a farmer, his parents attached great importance to educating their children. He went to private schools first and then went to school.
Unfortunately, when my father died at the age of 13, my mother took care of four children, and life became more and more difficult. Li Zhensheng read the second year of high school with the support of his brother, and he was unable to support it any more.
After dropping out of school, Li Zhensheng came to Jinan alone and wanted to ask someone to find a job. By chance, he saw the enrollment notice of Shandong Agricultural College in the street, saying that he could provide food and accommodation, so he took the idea of giving it a try and won the exam smoothly.
"I never dared to think about having food and going to college." Li Zhensheng said that he was hungry and knew the value of food and the importance of agriculture, so he especially cherished this learning opportunity.
Li Zhensheng has been obsessed with the lessons of two professors. The head of Shandong Agricultural College is Professor Shen Shouquan from the former yenching university, who teaches students wheat breeding in simple terms, which is very attractive, while another professor, Yu Songlie, gives a vivid lecture on genetics, which makes him interested in this field.
When he returned to his hometown during the holiday, Li Zhensheng also introduced several excellent wheat varieties cultivated in the school to his home. After planting, the yield was indeed higher than that of the local old varieties, and the villagers came to change the varieties. This gave me the idea of engaging in wheat breeding research in the future.
from grass to wheat
In p>1951, when he graduated from university, he was lucky enough to be assigned to work in Chinese Academy of Sciences. After working in Beijing for five years, in response to the call of the central government to support the northwest construction, he and 13 colleagues of the research group were transferred to the Northwest Institute of Agricultural Biology of China Academy of Sciences in Yangling, Shaanxi Province.
Actually, Li Zhensheng studied grass at first. During his stay in Beijing, he worked with his mentor and soil scientist Feng Zhaolin to study the improvement of soil by planting grass. He once collected and planted more than 8 kinds of grass, which has a certain foundation for grass research.
after arriving in the northwest, it was catching up with the epidemic of wheat stripe rust in the northwest, resulting in a reduction of production by 2% to 3%.
Li Zhensheng, then only 26 years old, was very worried. He decided to engage in wheat improvement research to cultivate excellent disease-resistant wheat for farmers.
"Farmers have planted wheat for thousands of years, but the wheat is still so weak and sick, but the weeds are left unattended, but they grow well." Li Zhensheng, who has studied grass, wondered whether it is possible to cultivate a wheat variety with strong disease resistance by crossing wheat with natural pasture.
The reason that caused the epidemic of wheat stripe rust at that time was that the speed of pathogen mutation was fast and the speed of breeding was slow, that is, it took eight years to breed a new wheat variety, while stripe rust could produce a variety in an average of 5.5 years, which became a worldwide problem at that time. In this case, Li Zhensheng put forward the idea of transferring the disease-resistant genes of grass to wheat through distant hybridization, and breeding wheat varieties with persistent disease resistance. This idea was supported by Wen Honghan, an authoritative botanist at that time, and Li Zhenqi, a plant pathologist. Young Li Zhensheng carried out this research for 5 years.
"combination of far and near" escaped the impact
At that time, no one in China ever tried to cross the irrelevant grass with wheat.
The hybrid of the first generation of weeds and wheat has been studied. This kind of thing, called hybrid generation, looks nothing like wheat, but just like weeds. Moreover, this hybrid is sterile and distant hybridization, and it also faces the problems of cross incompatibility and "crazy separation" of offspring.
At that time, this research was regarded by many people as a timid road. Li Zhensheng said that he had no idea at that time. Moreover, the most worrying thing is that because this research is difficult to produce results, he also faces the criticism that "research work is divorced from reality".
when his research was carried out in the eighth year, the "social education movement" at that time began and he was criticized. Some people say that his research has been going on for eight years, but no results have been achieved. He is divorced from reality and wants him to give up. "At that time, I saw the phased results that have been achieved, how can I bear to give up?" Li Zhensheng said that his philosophical knowledge and research methods had helped him.
Li Zhensheng said that he adopted a little philosophical technique, "combination of far and near"-at first, when he was doing research on wheat and grass hybridization, he felt uncertain in his heart, so at the same time, he carried out routine cross breeding of wheat varieties. By 1964, his selected Shengxuan No.5 and No.6 had been popularized and applied in production. Therefore, the task force finally said that after all, he has two varieties playing a role in production, and it cannot be said that his work is divorced from reality. Only in this way can we pass the customs.
In 1979, Li Zhensheng finally made a breakthrough in his research, and Xiaoyan No.6, which was cultivated by him, was successfully popularized in a large area. At that time, it was said in rural areas of Shaanxi that "you should eat noodles and plant Xiaoyan", which made Xiaoyan No.6 not be popularized.
Xiaoyan 6 has become an important backbone parent of wheat breeding in China, with nearly 5 derived varieties, which have been popularized for more than 3 million mu. Increase wheat production by more than 15 billion Jin.
It is the farmers who really score
In fact, from 1978 to 1998, a large number of excellent wheat varieties cultivated by Li Zhensheng and his colleagues contributed to the large-scale increase in grain production in China in the past 2 years.
a set of data shows that from 1978 to 1998, China's total rice output increased by 62.7 billion kilograms, and the total wheat output increased by 69.4 billion kilograms, surpassing rice.
The breeding process of Xiaoyan No.6 lasted for 23 years, so it is difficult for others to repeat it. So Li Zhensheng introduced chromosome engineering technology into the field of wheat breeding, and established the method of backcross without body, which shortened the breeding time of distant hybridization to three and a half years and opened up a new way for chromosome engineering breeding.
This innovation has attracted the attention of the international chromosome engineering community. Sears, president of the American Genetic Society, and other well-known experts proposed that the first international conference on plant chromosome engineering be held in Xi 'an in 1986, in order to see his achievements in the experimental field in Li Zhensheng.
At this time, Li Zhensheng has become famous, and various rewards are coming one after another. But Li Zhensheng is still most keen on going to the fields to see wheat. He said, "It is the farmers who really give me grades."
Li Zhensheng knows the importance of food. In the 198s, China's grain production has been wandering for three years since 1984, and the grain has not increased for three years, while the population has increased by more than 5 million. The government is anxious to find a solution to break the wandering. In this case, he and the agricultural experts of the Academy of Sciences, through three months' investigation, put forward the management scheme of middle and low yield fields in Huang-Huai-Hai.
when China's grain increased from 8 billion Jin to 9 billion Jin, the growth in Huang-Huai-Hai region was 5.48 billion Jin, accounting for half.
Since then, Li Zhensheng has raised the issue of food security on many occasions. In 24, China's grain declined for five years in a row. He delivered a speech entitled "Restorative production of grain, time waits for no one" at the humanities forum, which attracted attention from all sides.
Later, due to the favorable measures taken by the central government to support agriculture, it achieved recovery growth for three consecutive years, and the grain output in 26 reached nearly 1 trillion Jin.
The old man knows very well that the food problem of China people is a worldwide problem. In April 25, he gave a speech at Boao Forum, responding to American Lester Brown's best-selling book "Who will feed China?" Ten years ago. ","we should tell the world the truth, China people can support themselves! Now, in the future, we believe that with the correct policies, scientific and technological development and economic development in China, we will be able to support ourselves.