Integrated technology for green soybean yield and efficiency improvement achieves results in the Huang-Huai-Hai region
??? On September 21, at the "Field Demonstration Meeting on Green Soybean Yield and Efficiency Improvement Technology Models," good news came from the demonstration field in Yongqiao District, Suzhou City, Anhui Province: after preliminary yield measurement by experts, the highest soybean yield in the demonstration field reached 247.51 kg per mu, with an average yield of 195.27 kg, an increase of 11% per mu compared with ordinary fields, setting a typical example of high soybean yield under large-scale production conditions locally. This is also a new achievement of the "Green Soybean Yield and Efficiency Improvement Technology Model" project led by the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Soybean is China's most important high-protein food crop, and the sown area of high-protein quality edible soybeans in the Huang-Huai-Hai River Basin accounts for about 1/3 of the national total. Anhui is located in the southern part of the Huang-Huai-Hai region and is a concentrated production area for high-protein soybeans. Local farmers mostly sow soybeans after the winter wheat harvest, but the high wheat stubble left after wheat harvest seriously affects the sowing quality of soybeans. For a long time, how to effectively handle wheat straw and ensure soybean sowing quality has been a difficult problem. Against this backdrop, the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, together with relevant scientific research units, after years of effort and through large-scale joint collaboration, successfully developed a set of integrated models for green soybean yield and efficiency improvement in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, which can both solve the problem of straw handling and create new ways to increase soybean yield and income.
According to Han Tianfu, chief scientist of the project and a researcher at the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, this technical model takes the straw-covered cultivation technology for summer soybeans after wheat stubble as its core, integrates 8 key technologies, and has also developed a no-till precision seeder with straw covering, forming a highly simplified wheat-stubble no-till straw-covered precision sowing technology system that organically combines agricultural machinery, agronomic techniques and matching varieties.
This year, 1,200 mu of land of the Huaihe Seed Industry Grain Industry Consortium in Yongqiao District, Suzhou City, became a project demonstration field. General Manager Li Yong told reporters that originally, collecting wheat stubble straw each year cost 25 yuan per mu, and adding the costs of sowing soybeans, fertilizing and spraying pesticides required at least 60 yuan. Now, only one machine is needed to complete multiple operations at once, including straw crushing and covering, soybean sowing and pesticide application, at a cost of only 20 yuan. "According to today's yield measurement results, compared with previously planting corn, we can save costs and increase income by at least 183 yuan per mu. The benefit is very good," Li Yong said with emotion. "The integrated technology can be realized with just one machine, saving labor, time and effort. Next year, we will use more land to plant soybeans."
It is worth mentioning that, compared with other technologies, the biggest breakthrough of the integrated model is that it has found a new path for the scientific use of straw. "According to technical requirements, planting soybeans under wheat straw cover can store water and preserve soil moisture very well; after the soybean harvest, when the next season of wheat is planted, the wheat straw has already decomposed and can become organic fertilizer once turned into the soil. It serves as a 'quilt' for soybeans in the current season and as fertilizer for wheat in the next season. With wheat-soybean rotation, straw is truly turned from waste into treasure," explained Wu Cunxiang, an expert of the project team and a researcher at the Institute of Crop Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Li Jiayang, Vice Minister of Agriculture and President of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, also fully affirmed the integrated model for green soybean yield and efficiency improvement. He believes that the construction and promotion of the no-till straw-covered precision sowing technology model for soybeans in the Huang-Huai-Hai region will greatly raise the production level and planting efficiency of soybeans in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, increase farmers' enthusiasm for planting soybeans, gradually restore the wheat-soybean double-cropping system, and achieve balanced increases in grain and soybean production, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of China's modern agriculture and soybean industry. He stated that in the future, the green soybean yield and efficiency improvement model still needs to continue strengthening integrated technological innovation to form more comprehensive technology models that can be replicated and promoted, leading the development of the soybean industry.
It is reported that in 2013, the integrated technology for green soybean yield and efficiency improvement had already been tested and demonstrated in Xinxiang, Henan and other places. Data showed that the actual harvested soybean yield in the Xinxiang demonstration field that year was 311.2 kg per mu, setting a typical example of cost-saving and high-yield summer soybeans in the Huang-Huai-Hai region. In the future, this integrated technology will also be promoted and applied on a large scale in the Huang-Huai-Hai region.