Suining-produced rice seeds sell well in the Vietnamese market
As "Shuxing No. 6" continues to be promoted and applied in Vietnam, it has held the sales champion title among individual hybrid rice varieties in Vietnam for four consecutive years, reaching more than 40 provinces in Vietnam——
"Suining-produced" rice seeds sell well in Vietnam
On August 14, when the reporter visited Sichuan Shuxing Seed Industry Co., Ltd. located in the Suining Economic Development Zone, the company was completely empty. Company chairman Luo Yunfei explained with a smile, "The company has fifty or sixty staff members. It is currently the rice harvest season, and they have all gone to the hybrid rice seed production bases to harvest rice."
It is precisely this group of scientific and technological personnel who take hybrid rice as their research subject that has developed Shuxing Seed Industry from the Shehong County Seed Company into what it is today, with a seed production scale of more than 3,000 tons and products exported to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries, making it a benchmark enterprise among export-oriented enterprises in China's seed production industry.
In 2012, Shuxing Seed Industry's Vietnam hybrid rice new variety "Shuxing No. 6" achievement transfer industrialization project successfully passed review by the provincial expert group and was listed as a Sichuan Provincial Scientific and Technological Achievement Transformation Project, becoming the only agricultural scientific and technological achievement transformation project with a crop as its carrier among the city's 19 provincial-level scientific and technological achievement transformation projects, and also the only international cooperation agricultural planting science and technology project.
"Shuxing No. 6" goes abroad
Planting area covers 40 provinces in Vietnam
When talking about the new hybrid rice variety "Shuxing No. 6," Luo Yunfei immediately became talkative, with his words constantly revealing his affection for this new variety. "Now the sales volume of 'Shuxing No. 6' in Vietnam has reached more than 1,000 tons, the planting area covers 40 provinces in Vietnam, and the planting area has reached 1 million mu."
However, in 2000, when "Shuxing No. 6" began selective breeding in Shehong County, the breeding area was less than 10 mu.
Luo Yunfei told the reporter that when "Shuxing No. 6" was first being bred, the company's scientific research team discovered that this variety had a fatal defect: affected by Sichuan's humid, damp, cloudy, and low-sunlight climate environment, it was extremely susceptible to rice false smut. "This made the variety fundamentally unsuitable for planting in the Sichuan region."
Since it was not suitable for planting in the Sichuan region, did that mean the breeding of the new variety had failed? "At the time we thought that competition among domestic seed companies was so fierce, while Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries in the main rice-producing areas lacked good hybrid rice varieties, which forced us to shift the direction of rice breeding abroad." It was precisely thanks to reflection on the domestic and international hybrid rice seed production environment that Shuxing Company changed the direction of its hybrid rice seed production.
Immediately afterward, Shuxing Company's scientific research team carefully analyzed the characteristics of "Shuxing No. 6" and found that "Shuxing No. 6" was very suitable for Vietnam's climate conditions. In 2003, Shuxing Company chose Ninh Binh Province in Vietnam, 300 kilometers from the China-Vietnam border, as the site for its first trial planting and breeding. "After one season of trial planting there, the experimental results were very gratifying, and this fully verified our original speculation."
The success of the initial trial planting stimulated even greater enthusiasm in Shuxing Company's scientific research team. In 2009, Shuxing Company successively sent two groups of technical personnel to Vietnam to conduct trial planting experiments on "Shuxing No. 6," setting the highest yield record for hybrid rice for three consecutive seasons, with one highest yield even reaching 13.6 tons per hectare. "Because extensive field planting methods were adopted at the time, if intensive and meticulous planting methods had been adopted, the rice yield could possibly have reached one ton per mu."
After the trial planting of "Shuxing No. 6" achieved tremendous success, it quickly caused a huge response in Vietnamese society. At one point it accounted for 90% of the hybrid rice planting area in Ninh Binh Province, Vietnam, and served as Ninh Binh's hybrid rice promotion project. "It is precisely because of its good comprehensive resistance, high yield, and good rice quality that it was promoted as a key variety." Luo Yunfei excitedly told the reporter that currently no second hybrid rice variety in all of Vietnam can be found whose influence exceeds that of "Shuxing No. 6."
According to the introduction, as "Shuxing No. 6" continues to be promoted and applied in Vietnam, it has held the sales champion title among individual hybrid rice varieties in Vietnam for four consecutive years. "This one variety alone accounts for more than 6% of Vietnam's total hybrid rice seed usage, with annual sales exceeding 1,000 tons, reaching more than 40 provinces in Vietnam."
Vigorously carry out scientific and technological cooperation
Build a domestic seed export "banner"
"Shuxing No. 6"——the "Suining-produced" hybrid rice seed has been successfully exported to Vietnam and firmly grasps the core technology of hybrid rice seed production. This is precisely the result of the unremitting efforts of Suining's scientific and technological personnel.
In order to further innovate hybrid rice seed production technology and cultivate better-quality new hybrid rice varieties, Shuxing Company has achieved "strong-strong cooperation" with the Rice Research Institute of the Sichuan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Wuhan University; at the same time, it has signed cooperation agreements with the Vietnam National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the National Rice Research Center, and Haiyang Province. Shuxing Company develops and promotes hybrid rice seeds in Vietnam and develops new varieties with technical personnel in Vietnam's hybrid rice field.