Farmer Academician Zhao Zhendong: Write your thesis in the fields, leave the results in the farmhouses
In the harvest month of June, wheat waves turn golden. Whether on the lands of Qilu or in the northern borderlands and southern lands, across the vast farmlands one can see year-round the figure of a man in his seventies, through cold and heat, through wind and rain. The famous and superior wheat varieties he bred, such as "Jimai 22," have been promoted over a cumulative area of more than 400 million mu, solving the food problem for more than 100 million people, adding more than 40 billion jin of wheat and more than 40 billion yuan in economic benefits. He is the "farmer scientist" who "writes his thesis in the wheat fields and leaves his results in the farmhouses" - Zhao Zhendong, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
????Checking the seedling condition: "Curled up in the car he 'wilts,' once in the wheat field he 'revives'"
Wheat harvest season, gold all over the ground; wheat harvest busy, grain fills the barns. Every year's summer harvest is also the busiest season for agricultural breeding workers. Zhao Zhendong, already past his seventies and leaning on a cane, is no exception.
Zhao Zhendong is 74 this year and has been engaged in wheat breeding for 32 years. A reporter recently followed Zhao Zhendong to Laizhou City, Shandong Province, to check the seedling condition. The drive from Jinan took about 4 hours. Along the way the sky was high and the clouds were light, but Zhao Zhendong had no heart to admire the scenery and kept changing his sitting position. "It's an old problem. From the waist down, hips and knee joints, there is not a single spot that does not hurt," Zhao Zhendong explained.
Li Genying, a member of the breeding team who has worked with Zhao Zhendong for many years, told the reporter: "Teacher Zhao is like wheat: curled up in the car he 'wilts,' once in the wheat field he 'revives.'"
Sure enough. As soon as they arrived at the destination, Zhao Zhendong nimbly got out of the car with his cane and strode toward the wheat field. In the blink of an eye as the reporter closed the car door, he had already reached the very front of the crowd.
The small paths in the wheat field are hard to walk, one step deep and one step shallow, but Zhao Zhendong walked steadily. When he found a "new situation," Zhao Zhendong would bend down and sweep his arm in a circle to check the elasticity of the wheat stalks and the disease and insect conditions at the roots; then he would grab a handful of wheat ears with his palm and squeeze them to check the compactness of the ears; finally he would pick a wheat ear at random, remove a few grains, and put them in his mouth to bite...
As soon as this set of "required movements" was finished, the data on the wheat's disease resistance, lodging resistance, grain filling, and gluten strength in this experimental field had already been recorded in Zhao Zhendong's mind. Years on the front line in rural areas have made Zhao Zhendong's intuitive judgment of wheat field conditions as precise as an instrument.
"Teacher Zhao spends more than half of the year away on business trips, either selecting seeds in wheat fields or checking seedling conditions in various provinces. Since the beginning of this year alone, he has already traveled to nearly 10 provinces including Beijing, Hebei, Henan, and Jiangsu," said Cao Xinyou, Zhao Zhendong's research secretary. "The more it is bitter winter cold or blazing summer heat, wind, frost, rain or snow, the more he must go to the fields to see whether the wheat has lodged, gotten diseased, or frozen. Even as a young person I often find it hard to keep up physically and mentally, but Teacher Zhao has never complained of hardship or fatigue."
?Variety innovation: "Of every 2 Shandong steamed buns, 1 is made with 'Jimai 22'"
When Zhao Zhendong is mentioned, some farmers may not know who he is, but when it comes to "Jimai 22," the farmers praise it endlessly: this variety is especially good, especially for high yield, cold resistance, lodging resistance, disease resistance, and resistance to dry hot wind...
"In Shandong, of the 2 steamed buns you eat, 1 is made with 'Jimai 22,'" said Liu Jianjun, a wheat expert at the Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Since 2009, "Jimai 22" has ranked first nationwide in winter wheat planting area for 6 consecutive years, becoming the wheat variety with the largest annual application range in China over the past 30-plus years. As of now it has been promoted over a cumulative area of 210 million mu, about 15% of the Huang-Huai wheat region, the main wheat-producing area in China, and about 50% of Shandong's wheat area.
"Jimai 22" is only 1 of the many wheat varieties bred by Zhao Zhendong's team. Others such as "Jinan 17," "Jimai 19," and "Jimai 20" are also very famous.
Liu Jianjun introduced that "Jinan 17" is China's first bread wheat variety applied on a large scale, and also the first high-quality, high-yield bread wheat in China with an annual planting area exceeding 10 million mu. It is known as "the pathbreaker of China's high-quality wheat"; "Jimai 19" is a high-quality, high-yield noodle wheat variety bred by Zhao Zhendong according to Chinese people's eating habits; "Jimai 20" solved the problem of simultaneously improving protein and starch quality, and is a dual-purpose bread and noodle wheat variety.
According to statistics, since 2000, the "Jimai" series varieties have been promoted over a cumulative area of more than 400 million mu, with an average annual promotion area of more than 30 million mu, a national market share of nearly 13%, a market share of 25% in the Huang-Huai wheat region, China's main wheat-producing area, and a market share of more than 50% in Shandong Province.
Relying on his "piles of battle achievements," Zhao Zhendong won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award 4 times, and in 2013 was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. The team he led was rated in 2008 as an outstanding innovation team for the Shennong China Agricultural Science and Technology Award, and in 2009 was rated as an outstanding innovation team of Shandong Province, and was honored with a collective first-class merit.
Farmer expert: "The highest peak is always the next one"
White shirt, gray trousers, gray cloth shoes, paired with dark skin and a face full of wrinkles... In the eyes of Kong Degui, former director of the Zaozhuang City Seed Management Station, Zhao Zhendong is no different from a farmer.
"Anyone who knows Teacher Zhao knows that he is a 'three-waters expert' - one body of dew in the morning, one body of sweat at noon, and one body of mud and water on rainy days. Not only does he dress about the same as a farmer, in the fields, when tired he just sits down anywhere, and what he says is all words that old farmers can understand, with not the slightest sense of distance," Kong Degui said.
Perhaps precisely because of this, Zhao Zhendong best knows how heavy the Chinese people's rice bowl is. "The country needs grain, farmers need to earn money, and consumers need health. Our country has many people and little land, and people increase while land decreases. Once wheat quality goes up, yield must also go up with it," Zhao Zhendong said.
Fan Qingqi, a member of the breeding team, told the reporter that after the birth of the "Jinan" and "Jimai" series, they changed the history of China's bread wheat dependence on imports, solved the food problem for more than 100 million people, and added more than 40 billion jin of wheat and more than 40 billion yuan in economic benefits.
For Zhao Zhendong's team, this brilliant achievement is absolutely not the end point. In 2014, they launched the "Wheat Yield Increase Science and Technology Support Plan," with the goal of surpassing "Jimai 22" at 1,600 jin per mu and breeding a new variety with a yield of 1,640 jin per mu.
"Breeding is like when I was young climbing the Tianshan Mountains. When you climb one peak, you realize the peak ahead is even higher than this one. The highest peak is always the next one," Zhao Zhendong said. (Reporter Ye Jing) Xinhua News Agency, Jinan