Famous agricultural scientist at home and abroad, pioneer and leader of hybrid rice in China, close friend of China, outstanding representative of personages without party affiliation, winner of "Medal of the Republic", former vice chairman of Hunan Provincial Political Consultative Conference, former director of National Hybrid Rice Engineering Technology Research Center and academician of China Academy of Engineering, he is known as "father of hybrid rice".
Yuan Longping's main contribution
1, Yuan Longping took the lead in the research on 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.
2. Yuan Longping solved three difficult problems in the research of three-line hybrid rice.
Firstly, the technical scheme of "distant hybridization between wild rice and cultivated rice" was put forward, and finally an effective way to cultivate male sterile lines was found. 1973 realized the "three lines" of sterile line, maintainer line and restorer line.
Second, a number of combinations such as "Nanyou No.2", a hybrid rice with strong advantages, were bred and widely used in production, becoming the first scientist in the world to successfully utilize the heterosis of rice.
The third is to break through the seed production barrier. According to previous studies, the outcrossing rate of rice is only 2.4%, and the seed yield of hybrid generation is extremely low, which is far from meeting the production requirements. The International Rice Research Institute started research on 197 1 and gave up on 1973, because no one in the institute believed that it could solve the problem of seed production at that time. The research group led by Yuan Longping successfully solved this problem, and the seed yield gradually increased, and now the yield per mu has reached more than 300 kilograms.
3. Yuan Longping put forward the development strategy of hybrid rice breeding, that is, from three lines to two lines and then to one line, the procedure is more and more simple and the efficiency is higher and higher; 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.
4. 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. Since 1987, he has served as a special responsibility expert for the "863" project and presided over the research on sexual cooperation in China. 1995 two-line hybrid rice was successfully studied, and the yield of two-line hybrid rice was 5% ~ 10% higher than that of three-line hybrid rice at the same maturity stage.
5. Yuan Longping designed the super-high yield plant type model with high canopy, short panicle layer and medium panicle and the technical route of cultivating super hybrid rice, and made great progress in the research of super hybrid rice.