The flowers of millet are very small, so artificial hybridization is very difficult, but it also has a certain natural hybridization rate. He spent two years observing the flowering habits of millet and mastering the rules. The results showed that different millet varieties had different seedling colors, including red and green. He used the dominant indicator character of red seedlings to naturally cross two varieties with different seedling colors, thus obtaining a hybrid seed setting rate of about 5%. This experiment provides convenience for millet breeding research, and the research results have been published in Journal of Jinda Agricultural College and American Journal of Agronomy, thus improving the hybrid breeding scheme of millet crops to some extent. Since then, Mei has also participated in the compilation of books such as Crop Breeding edited by Professor Hao and the translation of periodicals such as Agricultural Thesis Abstracts, which lasted for several years. These works further enriched Mei's professional knowledge and theoretical foundation. The multiple cropping index of the Yangtze River valley in China has been very high. In addition to double cropping of rice and wheat, there are many rotation modes such as wheat cotton, wheat beans and wheat corn, including double cropping and triple cropping. This is a unique model at home and abroad. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the early maturity of wheat to adapt to the multi-cropping system. Under his leadership, he has successively bred early-maturing wheat varieties such as Huadong No.5, Huadong No.6 and Aizao, which have played an active role in production.
Great progress has also been made in the basic research of early-maturing breeding. He applied the theory of stage development to study early maturity, pointing out that early maturity of wheat is mainly to shorten the growth and development time before heading, so strengthening the springiness of varieties and weakening the sensitivity of photoperiod is an effective way to advance the maturity of wheat in general, but to further advance the maturity of wheat, we should consider shortening the development progress after heading. Early flowering leads to early start of grain formation, which is beneficial to filling progress. The experimental data show that because different varieties have different responses to temperature, the flowering period is different even if heading at the same time. Therefore, only by deeply exploring the characteristics of wheat late development and the genetic differences among wheat varieties can it be more effectively applied to early-maturing breeding. Mei proved through a lot of data that the early maturity of wheat varieties in many places in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China is particularly prominent, and some varieties have strong genetic transmission ability of early maturity, and Jiangdongmen is one of the most prominent varieties. These varieties should be important basic materials for early-maturing wheat breeding in China. Mei also concluded that precocity is dominant or partially dominant in heredity, and it is controlled by micro-genes in addition to the main genes. Therefore, Mei emphasized that directional selection should be carried out in separated generations, and "choose early in the middle". Practice has proved that this has obvious effect on improving the early maturity of wheat. His above viewpoints have played a good guiding role in wheat early-maturing breeding.
From 65438 to 0978, Mei published the article "Discussion on Early Maturity Breeding of Wheat" in China Agricultural Sciences, which systematically expounded and summarized the main research results of early maturity research and early maturity breeding of wheat in China. This paper mainly demonstrates the following five relationships: the relationship between stage development characteristics and precocity; The relationship between phenology and precocity; The relationship between temperature and light ecological factors and precocity; Genetic analysis of early maturity and its relationship with high yield. This article was highly praised by crop academia. The "Editor's Note" of this article points out: "This article is worth reading because it pays equal attention to theory and practice, combines theory with rich breeding practice, and breeding work has rules to follow. The theory of stage development itself is therefore more substantial and rich. " In fact, this paper not only plays a guiding role in the research of wheat maturity and early maturity breeding, but also plays a guiding role in other crops. His academic views have formed a system in the book Wheat Breeding, which he participated in writing and publishing. After the founding of New China, Mei presided over wheat breeding and cultivation research in East China for a long time, and played an important role in organizing and promoting wheat scientific research activities in this area. He believes that the key task of agricultural scientific research activities is to solve the urgent problems in agricultural activities and promote the development of agricultural production. Therefore, from 1950s to 1960s, he spent one-third of his time going deep into rural fields every year to find out the problems. He traveled all over Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong provinces. After mastering a lot of first-hand information about agricultural production, he spent one-third of his time on experimental research and explored technical ways to solve problems. Then, take out one-third of the time to attend various scientific research and production meetings or visit the site. He is one of the influential agricultural scientists who went deep into the countryside, combined with reality and systematically summed up the experience of the masses. He has been praised by governments at all levels for many times and won the title of model worker. In the early 1950s, the Huaibei Working Group of East China Academy of Agricultural Sciences headed by Mei went to the rural areas of Jiangsu, Anhui and Huaibei to systematically investigate and summarize some scientific and technological problems existing in local wheat production, which played a very good role in promoting the development of wheat production at that time. Through these investigations and combined with experimental research, he wrote 1 1 papers, which were included in the Collection of Wheat Research Materials edited by him. These works have reference significance for guiding wheat production so far.
Mei is a wheat expert, but he doesn't talk about wheat by wheat, but puts wheat scientific research work in the overall situation of agricultural production, so that production and scientific research are closely combined. In the early 1960s, he participated in the study of agricultural regionalization in Jiangsu Province, and participated in and presided over the work of departmental regionalization including crop regionalization. He also made use of many years' scientific research reserves, the accumulation of practical knowledge in production and the thinking method of dialectical materialism, and made contributions to the collective completion of zoning research. This work started earlier, which promoted the study of agricultural regionalization in China.
Mei Ji Fang's attitude in scientific research is rigorous, and he can consider problems dialectically. His research on crop cultivation never looked at one aspect of the problem in isolation, but paid attention to handling the "trilateral" relationship, that is, comprehensively analyzing crop development, environmental conditions and technical measures. It is precisely because Mei pays attention to dialectical analysis method in agricultural science and technology research that she can quickly grasp the mainstream or essence of things in the complicated phenomena and put forward practical technical measures. The investigation of spring freezing injury in Suxian County, Anhui Province from 65438 to 0954 is an example. In the middle of April that year, it was frosted, and the stems and leaves of wheat were yellow and necrotic by the late frost. The disaster is very serious and people are worried. Many cadres and the masses advocate ploughing frozen wheat seedlings and planting autumn grain. Mei and the comrades of the working group went deep into the fields for several days. After looking at a large number of fields, they found that the same spring frost damage had different degrees of freezing damage in different fields in the same area. They found that the differences in the development process of wheat seedlings, the fat and thin soil fertility and local microclimate are all factors causing different degrees of freezing injury, which are related to the early cultivation and management measures. As long as all tillers are not frozen to death, or there are small tillers at the base, latent buds can still grow and heading. Based on these first-hand information, he put forward a theoretical and convincing disaster relief plan. He believes that even if wheat is frozen to a certain extent, appropriate cultivation management and effective measures can be taken immediately to strive for a certain harvest. Later practice has proved that timely watering, topdressing and hoeing of wheat fields after frost can achieve good harvest, and individual fields also exceed the average annual output. This remedy has saved a lot of losses for the country, and the people in northern Anhui still remember this matter vividly and sincerely admire it.
Mei's view on "trilateral relations" has brought great benefits to solving major problems in agricultural production. For example, in the spring of 1959, after the meteorological department issued a low temperature forecast similar to 1954, jiangsu provincial party committee held a telephone conference in the whole province to arrange anti-freezing and disaster relief measures. Mei attended the meeting as a consultant, proposing that wheat seedlings in the south of the Yangtze River grow vigorously and are vulnerable to freezing, but the temperature in the south of the Yangtze River will not drop to catastrophic low temperature; Although the temperature in Xuhuai area is low, the growth of wheat seedlings is small and should not be affected. According to the comprehensive analysis of crop development, environmental conditions and technical measures, even if disasters occur, they are only distributed in points, which will not cause large-scale disasters. His conclusion is that the freezing damage is not so serious in the whole province, but in some areas between Jianghuai and Jianghuai, we should be vigilant and take various anti-freezing remedial measures decisively. What happened later proved that his assertion was correct. In this way, not only great economic benefits have been achieved in production, but also valuable experience has been accumulated for frost and antifreeze, and many regular understandings have been summarized.