Recommended organic rice variety Nongken 58: an outstanding historical variety from the southern rice region

Nongken 58 was originally named Sekai, introduced from Japan, trial-planted in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces in 1957, and trial-planted and demonstrated on a large scale at multiple sites in the Taihu region in 1960, all with good results. It shows late maturity, short culms, a compact plant type, slender and tough stems, short internodes at the stem base, dark green leaves, early and numerous tillering, and a high earing rate; it is a multi-panicle late japonica variety. The number of grains per panicle is medium to slightly low, the 1000-grain weight is 26-27 g, the grains are plump, the seed-setting rate is high, the husk is thin, the grain quality is excellent, and it is sensitive to daylength. Grown as single-season late rice, the whole growth period is 165 days; grown as double-season late rice, the whole growth period is about 135 days. It is relatively tolerant of late transplanting, tolerant of fertilizer and resistant to lodging, resistant to bacterial leaf blight, and cold-tolerant in the late stage.

Because of its excellent overall traits and wide adaptability, it was successfully introduced in most areas of China's southern rice region and spread quickly. From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Anhui, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and other provinces (municipalities), the cumulative planting area of Nongken 58 as single-season and double-season late japonica reached 142 million mu, making it one of the rice varieties with the largest extension area in the southern rice region.

If you do not look it up, you would not know that Nongken 58 was already being planted starting in the 1960s. In the editor's impression, even in 1993 some people in his hometown were still growing this variety. By now you still do not know what the editor means by posting this, right? The editor is recommending this variety as a preferred choice for organic rice cultivation. Let's look at the reasons for the recommendation below.

Recommended organic rice variety:Nongken 58 Category: japonica rice

Recommendation index: ★★★★☆

Reasons for recommendation:

1. Nostalgia: most people in the south from the late 1960s to the 1970s ate this variety. According to the editor's survey, the grain quality of this variety leaves a very good impression in everyone's mind (when talking about delicious rice, they can directly call out the name of this variety, which shows the impression is deep (shi) and (zai) pro (hao) found (chi)).

2、Excellent grain quality and good palatability.

3. Wide adaptability: it has long been introduced on a large scale, so there is no need to worry about whether it is suitable for planting in the southern rice region, and its late-stage cold tolerance is good, making it especially suitable for the remote mountain and wild areas selected for organic rice cultivation.

4. Rare: although the historical extension area of this variety has already reached 142 million mu, since the spread of hybrid rice and some new conventional varieties in the southern rice region, it can be said that no one grows this variety anymore, and only a very fewresearch institutes and seed germplasm banks still keep this variety. Almighty Taobao also has it, but the price is ab (nor) so (lute) ly (ly) outrageous at 40 yuan/jin.

Aside: The mutant single plant Nongken 58S (photoperiod-sensitive genic male sterile rice) from Nongken 58 is the cornerstone of two-line hybrid rice. Its discoverer was Shi Mingsong. Unfortunately, when the editor checked the information on this variety in the national rice database, he found that the database actually had no introduction to this variety.