Fenlong deep-ploughing technology helps achieve the strategy of storing grain in the land and storing grain in technology

On December 12, 2012, the 2015 China Industry-University-Research Cooperation Innovation Conference was held in Kunming, Yunnan. Among the first-prize winners of the “2015 China Industry-University-Research Innovation Achievement Award” was a result led by the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences on the “invention of Fenlong, a new farming method, and its application”, and this technology had previously also been rated as a “2015 Guangxi Technology Invention Award Second Prize”. On December 16, the signing ceremony for the market launch of the first batch of self-propelled Fenlong machines from Guangxi Wufeng Machinery Co., Ltd. was held in Rong County, Guangxi. With the implementation of China's “strategy of storing grain in the land and storing grain in technology”, Fenlong technology will play an increasingly important role.

Wei Benhui, a researcher at the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the main inventor of the technology, said in an interview with reporters after receiving the award that “storing grain in the land” is an important strategic decision put forward by the Party Central Committee with Xi Jinping as General Secretary for agricultural development and ensuring food security during the “13th Five-Year Plan”. To implement this strategy well and do a good job in the great article of land, in addition to strictly controlling the red line of cultivated land and scientifically regulating land use, another very important aspect is how to rely on scientific and technological innovation to transform existing cultivated land, so that fields can be upgraded, low-yield fields can become medium-yield fields, medium-yield fields can become high-yield fields, and high-yield fields can become even more productive. Fenlong technology will have great potential.

Fenlong technology attracts increasing attention

Fenlong is a new farming technology different from traditional cultivation methods. Its main innovations include two major aspects: “cultivation methods for dryland crops and rice with Fenlong, and Fenlong cultivation machinery”, thereby building a new agricultural production technology system. Through deep ploughing to activate the soil and stimulate the soil's potential, it allows land and natural resources to bring out the maximum productivity in crop growth and realizes scientific, simple, efficient and harmonious development of agricultural production. Fenlong is expected to become a rare new technology that can not only increase yield and improve quality through deep Fenlong ploughing of fields, but also improve the ecological environment and benefit the public.

Reporters have long followed the progress of this technology. Six years ago, a reporter first reported on this newly born technology in Science Times (formerly China Science Daily) under the title “Fenlong Opens Up a New World for Agricultural Development”. Over the past few years, in addition to Guangxi, reporters also traveled south to Hainan and north to Hebei and Liaoning, and west to Ningxia, Gansu and other places for follow-up investigations and interviews, witnessing the role of Fenlong technology in promoting China's grain yield increase and agricultural development.

In 2009, in a Fenlong cultivation experiment of Chinese yam in Wuming, Guangxi, the average yield per mu was 3,779.1 kilograms, an increase of 30% over the control.

In 2010, in a Fenlong cultivation experiment of sugarcane in Guangxi, the raw cane yield increased by 1.02 tons per mu, an increase of 27.35%.

In 2011, in a Fenlong rice cultivation experiment in Beiliu City, Guangxi, the yield per mu increased by 130 kilograms over the control, an increase of 23%. In October, in a “Fenlong cultivation of crops in arid and semi-arid areas of Northwest China” experiment in Dingxi, Gansu, the yield of Fenlong potatoes per mu increased by 35.42% over the control.

In 2012, in a Fenlong wheat cultivation experiment in Huangchuan County, Henan, the yield per mu was 264.4 kilograms, an increase of 26.25%.

In 2013, at the National Hybrid Rice Center's Nanfan base in Sanya, Hainan, under high-fertilizer and high-water conditions, a super-high-yield Fenlong cultivation demonstration of hybrid rice still increased yield by 6.7%.

The Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences found from the yield results of fixed-position trials for five consecutive years (2011-2015) after Fenlong cultivation in Changtu, Liaoning and Wuqiao, Hebei in 2011 that under the one-crop-per-year spring maize condition in Changtu, Liaoning, the average annual yield increase per mu was 56.9 kilograms, with an increase rate of 10.5%; under the two-year three-crop condition of spring maize—winter wheat—summer maize in Wuqiao, Hebei, the average annual yield increase per mu was 110.5 kilograms, with an increase rate of 11.2%.

What is listed here is only part of the acceptance data from experimental demonstration projects. During interviews, an expert once told reporters that it is already quite good for a new technology to increase crop yield by 5%, while Fenlong technology has been tested and demonstrated in 20 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, with 20 crops planted, and yield increases of more than 10%, some even as high as 30%. This cannot but amaze people.

However, what Fenlong brings is not only crop yield increases but also changes in agricultural production models, among which rice cultivation is the most prominent. “Rice, rice, no rice without water.” Traditional rice cultivation requires one ploughing, two harrowings and one leveling, which is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Using Fenlong technology, not only can cultivation be completed in one pass on dry soil, but seedlings can also be thrown in the field while wearing shoes; water and fertilizer are reduced, yet yield increases. In July this year, experts measured the yield of rice planted with this technology in Beiliu City, Guangxi, and the average yield per mu increased by 126.07 kilograms over the control, an increase of 25.51%.

Fenlong technology increasingly attracts the attention of famous Chinese agricultural experts.

Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, immediately sent experts to Guangxi for investigation after learning in July 2011 about rice planted with Fenlong. Later, special funds were allocated to support exploration of Fenlong cultivation at the National Hybrid Rice Center. In 2012, a Fenlong rice experiment was carried out on sandy loam fields at the research base in Sanya, Hainan; in 2014, Fenlong rice experimental demonstrations were launched in Yuanjiang City and Longhui County, Hunan; in November this year, Yuan Longping also made a special trip in Nanning to inspect sugarcane planted with Fenlong. In July 2014, when reporters interviewed him in Hunan, he spoke highly of Fenlong technology, believing that “this new technology can now be promoted nationwide”.

Academicians Dai Jingrui, Zhao Qiguo, Xie Hua'an, Li Peicheng and others have also successively affirmed and supported this new technology. Liu Xu, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes that this technology “is original and can be applied to various crops”; Shan Lun, a dryland agriculture physiological ecologist and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that Fenlong cultivation “has taken a key step in the reform of tillage”.

Fenlong technology has also increasingly attracted the attention of national and local leaders. On November 27, 2015, Ma Biao, vice chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, made a special trip in Nanning to inspect sugarcane planted with Fenlong and Chinese yam under targeted ecological cultivation; Peng Qinghua, secretary of the Guangxi Autonomous Region Party Committee, specially issued instructions on the demonstration and promotion of Fenlong machines; Chen Wu, chairman of the autonomous region, recently came to the Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences for research and, after on-site inspection of Fenlong cultivation and machinery, gave encouragement; on November 23, at the National Sugarcane Mechanization Conference held in Chongzuo, Vice Minister of Agriculture Zhang Taolin gave affirmation after watching a demonstration of self-propelled Fenlong machinery.

When it comes to whether a new agricultural technology is good, farmers are the ones with the most say.

In 2011, when a Fenlong rice cultivation experiment was first carried out in Xingshang Village, Min'an Town, Beiliu, Guangxi, the villagers initially did not understand the new technology, but after tasting the sweetness of increased yield, their attitude underwent a fundamental change. Twenty-one households jointly requested the promotion of this technology, and the demonstration lasted for 5 years. The content of the demonstration also developed from no-till paddy fields to throwing seedlings on dry paddy soil. Each demonstration brought them joy and aroused great enthusiasm for the new technology.

In April this year, when the Guangxi Wufeng Fenlong machine ploughing team came to Taipingzhuang Village, Qiaotou Town, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, a place with drought in nine years out of ten, and the village heard that Fenlong technology helped resist drought, it set aside 155 mu of land for a Fenlong maize planting demonstration. On September 23, the yield measurement and acceptance result of a 30.4% increase made the villagers regard Fenlong with even greater respect, and they said they would expand the demonstration area next year.