Academician Yuan Longping passed away in Changsha, looking back on his life
On the morning of May 22, CGTN released news on Weibo that Yuan Longping, the "Father of Hybrid Rice", academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and winner of the "National Medal of China", died in Beijing in 2021 due to ineffective treatment for his illness. He passed away in Changsha on the morning of May 22 at the age of 91.
However, CGTN quickly deleted the Weibo post, then deleted the page and apologized for the false news. At the same time, The Paper learned from Yuan Longping’s secretary Yang Yaosong that the news on the Internet is false news. Yuan Longping is currently in the hospital and is not in good health. "We are currently in the hospital."
But at 13:44 this afternoon, Xinhua News Agency announced that it learned from Xiangya Hospital of Central South University that the "Father of Hybrid Rice", an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the "National Medal of Peace" were awarded Yuan Longping died in Changsha, Hunan at 13:07 on May 22 at the age of 91.
Yuan Longping is the pioneer in the research and development of hybrid rice in my country. He is also the first scientist in the world to successfully utilize the hybrid vigor of rice. He is known as the "Father of Hybrid Rice". Until the beginning of this year, he still insisted on carrying out scientific research work at the southern propagation base in Sanya, Hainan.
In November 2020, CCTV news reported that Yuan Longping’s team welcomed the double-cropping rice yield of 3,000 kilograms per mu and measured the average late rice yield of 911.7 kilograms per mu. Previously, the early rice high-yield research field at the Hengnan base in Hunan underwent production testing and acceptance in July, and the average early rice yield per mu was measured to be 619.06 kilograms. Early rice plus late rice achieve the goal of 1,500 kilograms per mu! Previously, the hybrid rice researched by Yuan Longping and his team has repeatedly broken rice yield records.
Yuan Longping was born in 1930. He is a Chinese hybrid rice breeding expert, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, a recipient of China's "National Medal of Peace", and a pioneer in the research and development of hybrid rice in China. He is known as "The father of hybrid rice in the world".
On September 7, 1930, Yuan Longping was born at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, and was delivered by Lin Qiaozhi, who had just become an obstetrician and gynecologist. The child was of the "Long" generation and was born in Peiping, so the family named him Yuan Longping. Yuan Longping attended primary school in Rotary Primary School in Hankou, Hubei Province, Hongyi Primary School in Li County, Hunan Province, and Chongqing Municipal No. 11 Primary School. Studying in Chongqing Fuxing Junior High School, Chongqing Ganjiang Middle School, and Chongqing Boxue Middle School.
After the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, Yuan Longping left Chongqing. He studied at Boxue Middle School and the High School Affiliated to Central University. In 1949, he returned to Chongqing to attend high school. In August 1949, he was admitted to the Agricultural Department of Chongqing Xianghui College, majoring in genetics and breeding. The department was adjusted and merged into the Agricultural Department of the newly built Southwest Agricultural College in Chongqing. He graduated from Southwest Agricultural College in 1953.
In the summer of 1953, after finishing his university studies, he went to teach at Anjiang Agricultural School in Huaihua District, Hunan Province. In 1960, a nationwide famine occurred in China. He was determined to make a name for himself in agricultural research.
In July 1960, he accidentally discovered a rice plant with special characteristics in the experimental field of the agricultural school. Surprised, he used the rice plant to test-plant and found that its offspring had different properties. Because rice is self-pollinating and there is no separation of traits, he concluded that it was a natural hybrid rice. Then he artificially removed the male and female rice flowers and fertilized them with pollen from another variety in an attempt to produce hybrid varieties. On July 5, 1964, he found a "natural male sterile strain" in an experimental rice field. After artificial pollination, he produced hundreds of first-generation male sterile strain seeds. In July 1965, he detected 6 sterile plants among more than 14,000 rice ears, and in the following two years of sowing, only 4 plants successfully reproduced for 1 to 2 generations. His research completely overturned the traditional classic theory of "asexual hybridization" by Michurin and Lysenko, and deduced that rice also has hybrid vigor. Hybrid rice can be cultivated through the three-line method of breeding male sterile lines, male sterile maintainers and male sterile restorers, which can greatly increase rice yields.
In 1966, the discovery of three-line hybrid rice was published in the "Scientific Bulletin" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as "Male Sterility of Rice". It was his first important paper, and this journal " Science Bulletin was the last publication before the Cultural Revolution. The Cultural Revolution impacted Yuan Longping's research, and his experimental rice field breeding was even vandalized and eradicated, but he still persisted in experimenting. In order to increase the experimental effect, he and his assistants went to Sanya, Hainan every winter to conduct rice breeding. They even tied the seeds to their bodies on the way and used body temperature to breed and germinate.
However, the research encountered a bottleneck, and more than 3,000 tests were unsuccessful. On November 23, 1971, his assistants Li Bihu and Feng Keshan discovered a rare male-sterile wild rice strain in the Hainan experimental field. Afterwards, the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences established a hybrid rice research collaboration group, headed by Yuan Longping. In 1972, hybrid rice was listed as a key scientific research project in China, and a nationwide collaborative effort began: more than 30 scientific research units participated, and thousands of varieties and tens of thousands of test crosses and backcross breeding experiments were conducted with this wild rice strain. On this basis, Yuan Longping successfully bred the sterile line 29 South No. 1, which was the first sterile line rice used in production in China.
In 1973, based on the "sterile line" and "maintainer line", more than a thousand varieties from the Yangtze River Basin, South China, Southeast Asia, Africa, America, Europe and other places were used to conduct test cross screening. , found more than a hundred rice plants with resilience. So far, Yuan Longping and his team have bred three-line hybrid rice for the first time, and the rice yield has increased from 300 kilograms per mu to more than 500 kilograms per mu. In October of that year, Yuan Longping published the paper "Progress in Breeding Three Lines Using "Wild Barnyard"", officially announcing the success of China's "three lines" of indica hybrid rice. In 1974, he successfully bred the first strong, superior and high-yielding hybrid rice combination for large-scale production - Nanyou No. 2, which increased yield by more than 20% compared to ordinary rice.
In 1974, Yuan Longping's team successfully prepared seeds and organized the identification of advantages. In 1975, large-scale seed production was successful again, and seeds were prepared for large-scale promotion the following year, bringing the research results into the stage of large-scale promotion. In the winter of 1975, the State Council of China made a decision to rapidly expand trial planting and promote hybrid rice in large quantities. It invested a lot of manpower, material resources, and financial resources to carry out breeding and seed production three generations a year, and promoted it as quickly as possible. In 1976, 2.08 million acres were designated for demonstration and began to be used in production nationwide. By 1988, the national hybrid rice area was 194 million acres, accounting for 39.6% of the rice area. In 1979, as China's first scientific research technology, three-line hybrid rice technology was introduced to the United States. In 1981, Yuan Longping won the first "National Special Invention Award" of the People's Republic of China for his successful breeding of Chinese indica three-line hybrid rice. In 1982, Yuan Longping was hired as a part-time professor by Hunan Agricultural University; in 1985, he was hired as a part-time professor by Southwest Agricultural University.
Two-line hybrid rice
Yuan Longping is not satisfied with this result. In 1987, he proposed the "development strategy of hybrid rice", that is, the utilization of interspecific heterosis mainly by three-line method; the utilization of heterosis of indica and japonica subspecies mainly by two-line method; the utilization of distant hybrids mainly by one-line method. Take advantage. On July 16, 1987, students Li Bihu and Deng Huafeng of Yuan Longping found a photosensitive sterile rice plant among the three-line indica breeding materials of Anjiang Agricultural School. After two years and three generations of off-site breeding and observation, the agronomic properties of the material were consistent, the sterile plant rate and degree of sterility reached 100%, and the fertility conversion was obvious and synchronous. This new achievement has opened up a new situation for the transition of hybrid rice from the "three-line method" to the "two-line method". In 1995, two-line hybrid rice was successfully researched and generally increased yield per mu by 5%-10% compared to three-line hybrid rice at the same maturity stage.
In 1997, Yuan Longping once again initiated research on super hybrid rice. In 2000, super hybrid rice achieved the first phase goal of yielding 700 kilograms per 100 acres of demonstration plots. In 2004, super hybrid rice achieved the second phase goal of yielding 800 kilograms per 100 acres of demonstration plots. In addition to increasing production, Yuan Longping said that the new super hybrid rice will pay more attention to rice nutrition. His research team has been committed to testing new varieties to increase vitamin A, protein, starch and other nutritional contents in order to reduce anemia and visual diseases.
Just in 2003, more than half of the rice produced in mainland China were Yuan Longping's hybrid varieties; worldwide, 20% of the rice produced used Yuan Longping's hybrid technology. In 2007, mainland China's rice production was 500 million tons. Its hybrid rice technology has been trial-grown in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, North America, and South America. Hybrid rice has been used worldwide and continues to make outstanding contributions to solving world food security and shortages.
On September 19, 2011, the acceptance team of the Ministry of Agriculture of China just announced that the "Y Liangyou No. 2" 100-mu super hybrid rice test field directed by Yuan Longping had an average yield of 926.6 kilograms per mu, setting a record for large-scale rice per mu in China. The highest production record.
On September 29, 2013, the National Hybrid Rice Engineering Technology Research Center confirmed that the National Fourth Phase Super Rice 100-acre Demonstration Film "Y Liangyou 900" was developed by the scientific research team of Academician Yuan Longping, the "Father of Hybrid Rice", after being tested and accepted by the Ministry of Agriculture. "The average yield of medium-sized rice per mu reached 988.1 kilograms, setting a world record. On October 10, 2016, the 100-acre research base of the super hybrid rice “Hundreds and Thousands” project directed by Yuan Longping was harvested. The experimental rice variety of the base is "Super 1000" selected by the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center. After acceptance by an expert group headed by Xie Huaan, the measured yield per mu reached 1013.8 kilograms, creating a new high-latitude hybrid rice yield per mu. world record. On October 16, 2017, Yuan Longping’s team once again set a world record with a super hybrid rice yield of 1,149.02 kilograms per mu.
On November 2, 2020, at the Hunan double-cropping late rice experimental demonstration base, the yield test results of the third-generation hybrid rice "Sanyou No. 1" late rice were released, with the average yield per mu reaching 911.7 kilograms. In addition, the average yield of early rice per mu in the early rice high-yield research field of the Hengnan base in July was measured to be 619.06 kilograms, which means that the average yield of third-generation hybrid rice, early and late double-cropping rice, exceeded 1,500 kilograms, reaching 1,530.76 kilograms, once again refreshing the original world. record. Yuan Longping, who was watching the live broadcast of the acceptance acceptance, also shouted "Morethanexcited!"
On May 9, 2021, Yuan Longping's team inspected the Super Thousand Numbers located at the Haitang Bay Base of the Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center in Sanya City, Hainan Province , the average yield per mu was measured to be 1004.83 kilograms.
Planting hybrid rice in the desert
On October 18, 2014, Ma Guohui, deputy director of the National Hybrid Rice Center, was appointed by Yuan Longping to inspect Chen Risheng’s work in the birthplace of sea rice in Zhanjiang and apply for overseas employment. The rice project was approved by the state. On May 7, 2017, the Qingdao Sea Rice Research and Development Center established by the Qingdao Municipal People's Government, Qingdao Licang District People's Government, Academician Yuan Longping, and the National Hybrid Rice Engineering Technology Research Center was unveiled. Yuan Longping is the director of the center. The headquarters of the center is located in the International Academician Port, Licang District, Qingdao City, and the seawater rice research and development experimental base is located in Bainidi Park, Licang District. Yuan Longping delivered a keynote speech on "Marine Technology and Food Security" at the Huangdao Forum of the East Asia Marine Cooperation Platform in 2017, saying that within 3 to 5 years, he will breed a species with a yield of 300 kg/mu under seawater irrigation and planting conditions with a salt concentration of 3-8‰. For the above new saline-alkali tolerant rice varieties, he also said that there are 950 million hectares of saline-alkali land in the world, of which 320 million hectares are in Asia, accounting for more than one-third of the world. China has 100 million hectares of saline-alkali land, of which 280 million acres can be developed and utilized, of which 200 million hectares. Each mu has the potential to grow rice. If the trial planting and promotion are successful, based on an output value of 200 to 300 kilograms per mu, an additional 50 billion kilograms of grain can be produced and approximately 200 million more people can be fed. On September 28, 2017, the "sea rice" project led by Yuan Longping conducted on-site yield testing at the test base of Qingdao Sea Rice Research and Development Center and the National Demonstration Base for Sea Rice Improvement in Jinkou Town. In 2018, the Hainan Southern Propagation Base selected 176 excellent varieties from thousands of sea rice materials for large-scale trial planting across the country.
In 2018, the Qingdao Sea Rice R&D Center team led by Yuan Longping, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, tested the yield of hybrid rice experimentally grown in the tropical desert of Dubai. The maximum yield per mu exceeded 500 kilograms.
Genetically modified rice
After 2000, Yuan Longping established a genetically modified application research laboratory and a molecular breeding research laboratory, and recruited dozens of senior professionals from across the country. At the same time, his son Yuan Dingyang was sent to the Chinese University of Hong Kong to specialize in genetic modification. In 2003, Yuan Longping guided doctoral students to carry out research on introducing genomic DNA from distantly related species into rice, and transferred a batch of foreign genes into rice.
In 2005, Yuan Longping told reporters, “After 30 years of development, all the conventional breeding methods have been exhausted. To further tap the potential of rice yield, new breakthroughs must be made in biogenetic technology. "And guided the team's researchers to introduce the outer genome into the hybrid rice parent line through ear stem injection. In 2007, Yuan Longping published an article in Hybrid Rice, clearly expressing his expectation for the government to support the commercialization of genetically modified rice. "As long as the country relaxes restrictions on genetically modified rice, genetically modified rice with herbicide resistance will have great development prospects." In 2008, Yuan Longping undertook a major national project on "cultivation of new high-yielding genetically modified rice varieties."
On January 2, 2014, Chinese official media reported that Yuan Longping, the “father of hybrid rice” in China, revealed that he was conducting research on genetically modified rice, which attracted attention. As early as 2008, when the country launched a major project on genetically modified technology, Yuan Longping had already undertaken the "cultivation of new high-yield genetically modified rice varieties" project. His son Yuan Dingyang, who "inherited his father's legacy", also published many research papers on genetically modified technology.
On March 10, 2021, Yuan Longping fell at the Sanya Hybrid Rice Research Base. On April 7, he was transferred to Changsha, Hunan for treatment.
At 13:07 on May 22, Yuan Longping died of multiple organ failure at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University; the homepage of the official website of Yuan Longping Agricultural High-Tech was changed to grayscale to mourn.
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