Yuan Longping, the founder of hybrid rice in China, is known as the "father of hybrid rice". He devoted himself to the research, application and popularization of hybrid rice technology, invented "three-line method" indica hybrid rice, successfully developed "two-line method" hybrid rice, and created a super hybrid rice technology system.

Yuan Longping has solved the problem of food and clothing for one fifth of the world's population, and kept the people of China firmly in their own hands. He also put forward the high-yield project of "planting three crops and producing four crops", that is, planting three crops and four crops.

Yuan Longping

Yuan Longping took the lead in studying the utilization of rice heterosis in China. In his first paper, Rice Male Sterility, he proposed: "If you want to take advantage of rice heterosis, you must first take advantage of male sterility".

His theory and research practice are a challenge to the classical genetic theory, denying the traditional view that "self-pollinated crops have no heterosis" and greatly enriching the theory and technology of crop genetics and breeding.

Knowledge expansion:

Yuan Longping put forward the development strategy of hybrid rice breeding, that is, the method changed from three lines to two lines and then to one line, and the procedure became simpler and more efficient.

At the level of heterosis, from varieties to subspecies to the utilization of distant heterosis, heterosis is getting stronger and stronger, which pushes hybrid rice to a new level step by step. This idea has been adopted by colleagues at home and abroad and has become the guiding ideology for developing hybrid rice breeding.

Yuan Longping solved some key technical problems in the dual-system method. For example, 1989, when the research of two-line method encountered great setbacks, he put forward the initial temperature index and technical strategy for breeding practical photo-thermo-sensitive genic male sterile lines, which made the research of two-line hybrid rice out of the trough.

Later, the core seed production program and cold water series irrigation propagation were put forward, which made the research of two-line hybrid rice finally successful and popularized.

Yuan Longping has designed the super-high yield plant type model with high canopy, short panicle layer and large panicle and the technical route of cultivating super hybrid rice, and has made great progress in the research of super hybrid rice.