Please introduce Mr. Li Zhensheng, the "Father of Wheat"?

Li Zhensheng is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences. Born in February 1931, graduated from the Agricultural Department of Shandong Agricultural College in 1951. From 1987 to 1992, he served as Vice President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Director of the Institute of Genetics. From 1992 to 1997, he served as Director of the State Key Laboratory of Plant Cell and Chromosome Engineering of the Institute of Genetics. He is currently Director of the Academic Committee of the Laboratory.

Li Zhensheng has been engaged in research on distant hybridization and chromosome engineering breeding of wheat and wheatgrass for a long time. He has bred a series of wheat varieties such as Xiaoyan 4, 5, and 6, and created the blue monomer wheat system and autoflowering system for the first time. The fruit-deficient wheat system has established a new method for breeding wheat heterogeneous lines - the deletion backcross breeding method, which has laid the foundation for wheat chromosome engineering breeding.

Hunger prompted him to embark on the road of "making wheat"

"This is the Xiaoyan No. 6 we cultivated. Look, how chewy it is." On the 27th, in his own In the office, Li Zhensheng picked a wheat seed from a wheat specimen, neatly placed it on his front teeth, chewed it open, and showed it to the reporters at the scene.

The wheat grains were crystal clear, which attracted a lot of admiration, and Li Zhensheng’s eyes showed a proud look. These are high-quality wheat varieties that he and his colleagues have worked hard to cultivate for 20 years. The cumulative extension area is more than 150 million acres, increasing wheat production by more than 8 billion jins.

This scientist who works with wheat first embarked on the road of "making wheat" because of his early experience of hunger.

Li Zhensheng was born in 1931 in rural Zibo, Shandong. His family was poor when he was young, but his parents, who were farmers, attached great importance to their children's education. He first attended a private school and then went to school.

Unfortunately, his father passed away when he was 13 years old, leaving his mother with four children alone, making life increasingly difficult. With the support of his brother, Li Zhensheng reached the second year of high school, but he could no longer support himself.

After dropping out of school, Li Zhensheng came to Jinan alone and wanted to find someone to find a job. By chance, he saw the enrollment notice of Shandong Agricultural College on the street, saying that it could provide food and accommodation, so he applied with the idea of ??giving it a try, and successfully passed the exam.

“Having food to eat and being able to go to college are things I never dared to think about in the past.” Li Zhensheng said that he had suffered from hunger and knew the value of food and the importance of agriculture, so I particularly cherish this learning opportunity.

Li Zhensheng has never forgotten the lessons of the two professors. The head of the department of Shandong Agricultural College is Professor Shen Shouquan from the former Yenching University. He gave students a wheat breeding class, which was easy to understand and very attractive. The genetics class taught by another professor, Yu Songlie, was also very vivid, which made him interested in this field.

When he returned to his hometown during the holidays, Li Zhensheng also introduced several fine wheat varieties cultivated in the school to his home. After planting, the yield was indeed increased compared with the old local varieties, and the villagers came to change the varieties. “This gave me the idea to engage in wheat breeding research in the future.”

From grass to wheat

In 1951, when he graduated from university, he was lucky enough to be assigned to work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. After working in Beijing for 5 years, in response to the central government's call to support the construction of the northwest, he and 13 colleagues in the research team were transferred to the Northwest Institute of Agricultural Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yangling, Shaanxi.

In fact, Li Zhensheng initially studied grass. While in Beijing, he followed his mentor, soil scientist Feng Zhaolin, to engage in research on planting grass to improve soil. He had collected and planted more than 800 kinds of grass, and had a certain foundation in grass research.

After arriving in the northwest, we caught up with the epidemic of wheat stripe rust in the northwest, resulting in a 20% to 30% yield reduction.

Li Zhensheng, who was only 26 years old at the time, felt very worried. He decided to engage in wheat improvement research and breed excellent disease-resistant wheat for farmers.

“Farmers have been cultivating wheat for thousands of years, but the wheat is still so weak and sickly. However, the weeds grow well despite no one taking care of them.” Li Zhensheng, who has studied grass, wonders whether it is possible to combine wheat with natural What about crossing pastures to create a disease-resistant wheat variety?

The reason for the epidemic of wheat stripe rust at that time was that the pathogen mutated quickly and the breeding speed was slow. That is, it took 8 years to breed a new wheat variety, and stripe rust could produce a variant in an average of 5.5 years. , became a worldwide problem at that time.

Under this situation, Li Zhensheng proposed the idea of ??transferring grass disease-resistant genes to wheat through distant hybridization and breeding persistent disease-resistant wheat varieties. This idea was supported by Wen Honghan, an authoritative botanist at the time, and Plant Diseases. With the support of the Neo-Confucian scholar Li Zhenqi, the young Li Zhensheng carried out this research and has been working on it for 50 years.

"Combining near and far" to avoid the impact

No one in China had ever tried the hybridization of grass and wheat, which was completely unrelated to each other.

The first generation of hybrids between weeds and wheat has been developed. This so-called hybrid generation looks nothing like wheat, but just like weeds. Moreover, this kind of hybrid is sterile and distantly related, and it also faces the problem of hybrid incompatibility and "crazy separation" of offspring.

This research was regarded as a daunting prospect by many people at the time. Li Zhensheng said that he had no confidence at that time. Moreover, the most worrying thing is that because this research has been slow to produce results, he also faces criticism that "the research work is out of touch with reality."

When his research reached the eighth year, the "Social Education Movement" began and he was criticized. Some people say that his research has been conducted for 8 years but has not yielded any results, and that he is out of touch with reality, and they want him to give up. "When I saw the initial results that had been achieved, how could I bear to give up?" Li Zhensheng said that the philosophical knowledge and research methods he learned back then helped him.

Li Zhensheng said that he adopted a philosophical approach, "combining near and far" - when he was doing research on the hybridization of wheat and grass, he felt unsure, so he also carried out conventional wheat varieties. Crossbreeding work. By 1964, the Shengxuan No. 5 and No. 6 he had bred had begun to be promoted and applied in production. Therefore, the working team finally said that after all, he already has two varieties that are playing a role in production, and it cannot be said that his work is all out of touch with reality. This is how you pass the test.

By 1979, Li Zhensheng's research finally achieved a breakthrough. The Xiaoyan 6 he cultivated, which combines long-lasting disease resistance, high yield, stable yield, and high quality, was successfully promoted in large areas. At that time, the popular saying "If you want to eat noodles, grow Xiaoyan" in rural areas of Shaanxi Province, Xiaoyan No. 6 was not promoted by itself.

Xiaoyan 6 has become an important backbone parent of wheat breeding in my country, with nearly 50 derivative varieties and a cumulative promotion of more than 300 million acres. Increased wheat production by more than 15 billion jin.

The real scorers are the farmers

In fact, from 1978 to 1998, China’s grain production increased massively in the past 20 years, and Li Zhensheng and his colleagues cultivated a large number of excellent grains. Wheat varieties play an important role.

A set of data shows that from 1978 to 1998, my country's total rice production increased by 62.7 billion kilograms, and total wheat production increased by 69.4 billion kilograms, exceeding rice.

The breeding process of Xiaoyan No. 6 lasted 23 years, and it is difficult for others to repeat it. So Li Zhensheng introduced chromosome engineering technology into the field of wheat breeding and created the missing body backcrossing method, which shortened the breeding time of distant hybridization to three and a half years, opening up a new path for chromosome engineering breeding.

This innovation attracted the attention of the international chromosome engineering community. Well-known experts such as Sears, chairman of the American Genetics Society, proposed that the first international plant chromosome engineering academic conference in 1986 be held in Xi'an. Just go to Li Zhensheng’s experimental field and see his results.

At this time, Li Zhensheng had already become famous, and various awards came one after another. But what Li Zhensheng is still most passionate about is going to the fields to see wheat. He said, "It is the farmers who really rate me."

Li Zhensheng knows the importance of food. In the 1980s, my country's grain production experienced a three-year slump since 1984. There was no increase in grain for three years, while the population increased by more than 50 million. The government is eager to find a solution to break the prowl. Under this circumstance, he and agricultural experts from the Academy of Sciences proposed a management plan for the medium- and low-yield fields in Huanghuaihai after three months of investigation.

When my country’s grain increased from 800 billion catties to 900 billion catties, the increase in the Huang-Huai-Hai region was 50.48 billion catties, accounting for half.

Since then, Li Zhensheng has mentioned the issue of food security on many occasions. In 2004, my country's grain production declined for five consecutive years. He delivered a speech at a humanities forum entitled "Time waits for no time to restore grain production", which attracted attention from all walks of life.

Later, due to the favorable measures adopted by the central government to support agriculture, restorative growth was achieved for three consecutive years. In 2006, grain output reached nearly 1 trillion kilograms.

This old man knows very well that the food problem of the Chinese people is a major problem worldwide. In April 2005, he made a speech at the Boao Forum in response to American Lester Brown's best-selling book "Who Will Feed China?" ten years ago. ", "We should tell the world these real situations. Chinese people can support themselves! As it is now, in the future we believe that with China's correct policies, science and technology and economic development, we will be able to support ourselves.