Strengthening the “technological core” and improving Xinjiang cotton varieties – Observation on spring sowing of Xinjiang cotton 2
The world’s cotton looks to China, and Chinese cotton looks to Xinjiang. As China’s largest cotton-producing area, Xinjiang’s confidence in cotton comes from “hard-core” technology. Among them, the research and development of high-quality cotton seeds is a concentrated expression of “hard-core” technology.
In order to lay the foundation for high-quality cotton from the time of sowing, in recent years, Xinjiang’s scientific and technological workers, seed industry enterprises and cotton farmers have worked together to actively use scientific and technological means to promote cotton breeding, so that the “tech core” can better help Xinjiang Cotton industry development.
Sow seeds in spring first
Just a few days after the Qingming Festival, Zhang Yinbao, general manager of Xinjiang Jinfengyuan Seed Co., Ltd., came to the cotton fields in Wensu County to check the spring sowing situation.
“The company currently has 9 upland cotton varieties and 11 long-staple cotton varieties, and will select 2 varieties of cotton seeds for promotion this spring.” Zhang Yinbao said that the company’s planting area will increase to 3.5 million acres this year, and it plans to produce 6,000 cotton seeds. tons, which can meet the seed supply needs of various places in northern and southern Xinjiang.
Just as busy as Zhang Yinbao is Wu Hongtao, general manager of Xinjiang Tianyu Seed Industry Co., Ltd. During the spring sowing period, his busiest task is to guide farmers on the new cotton product developed by the Scientific Planting Company – New 78.
This variety was cultivated by the Economic Crop Research Institute of the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences and jointly tackled key problems with Xinjiang Tianyu Seed Co., Ltd. and Xinjiang Youngor Agricultural Science and Technology Co., Ltd. It is the first new early-maturing machine-picked long-staple cotton variety in Xinjiang. “This variety yields 511.5 kilograms of seed cotton per mu, and the net harvest rate is as high as 97.11%, breaking the technological monopoly of machine-harvested long-staple cotton in Western developed countries.” This scientific research achievement, which Wu Hongtao is very proud of, will bring new benefits to local cotton farmers. .
Seeds have always been regarded as the “chip” of agriculture. In order to lead the domestic cotton seed industry’s technological innovation, Xinjiang has established a cotton seed industry park in the main cotton producing areas. On March 31, the Yuli County Seed Industrial Park started construction in Horticulture Village, Tarim Township. The project will cooperate with cotton scientific research institutions and universities such as the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Shandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hebei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Carry out scientific research work such as cotton seed cultivation, planting and processing. After the project is put into production, it is expected to produce 40,000 tons of high-quality cotton seeds annually.
In recent years, Xinjiang has continuously strengthened cotton seed production, built a cotton seed industry system that integrates “industry, academia, research, breeding and promotion”, accelerated the cultivation of new cotton varieties and upgrading of varieties, and realized the innovation capabilities and production of cotton seed resources. Capacity and processing capabilities will be comprehensively improved to create a “Silicon Valley of Seed Industry” based in Xinjiang and facing the whole country.
Technological breeding improves quality and efficiency
Behind Xinjiang’s improved cotton varieties is full of scientific and technological content. At present, Xinjiang cotton breeding has entered the “molecular” level.
Sea island cotton, commonly known as long-staple cotton. Due to its small planting area in China, high-end raw cotton often relies on imports. “We use genome and transcriptome sequencing technology to explore the genetic mechanism of cotton fiber development.” Qu Yanying, a professor at the College of Agriculture of Xinjiang Agricultural University, said that after clarifying the excellent genes that determine the quality of sea-island cotton fiber, the team focused on developing cotton transgenic breeding technology and Research work on molecular marker-assisted selective breeding technology has transferred genes from sea island cotton to upland cotton to improve its fiber quality.
At present, the new upland cotton varieties cultivated by Qu Yanying’s team have been promoted over an area of more than 5 million acres in Xinjiang.
Opening up the blockage between the supply side and the demand side will unblock the pain points in the development of the cotton industry. Li Xueyuan, a researcher at the Economic Crops Research Institute of the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, believes that scientific research institutions will develop whatever the market needs.
In response to the shortcomings of machine-picked cotton, after years of research and development, the Economic Crops Research Institute of the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences has developed a new cotton variety that is early-maturing, high-quality, high-yielding, and suitable for machine-picked cotton – Yuanmian No. 11. This variety of cotton can meet the requirements of high-end production enterprises for high-quality cotton, lay a foundation for the development of contract agriculture, and gain market recognition.
In order to breed high-quality cotton seeds, Xinjiang scientific research units and university technical research teams have created a batch of molecular marker-assisted breeding materials with high application value. For example, the Economic Crops Research Institute of the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Xinjiang University, the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other research units within and outside the region have carried out research on cotton stress-resistant molecular breeding, and have successfully cultivated more than a hundred varieties of independentIntellectual property rights cotton breeding resources, laying the foundation for molecular marker-assisted cotton breeding in Xinjiang.
Industrial layout integrates the best and discards the miscellaneous
Since the “13th Five-Year Plan“, Xinjiang has made significant progress in cotton breeding.
In 2016, Xinjiang launched a key R&D project – “Technical Innovation Project for Improving Cotton Quality and Efficiency”; in 2020, it launched a major project – “Integrated Demonstration of Cotton High-Quality, High-Yield, Efficient and Standardized Production Technology” to cultivate a group of high-quality cotton New cotton varieties strongly support the development of Xinjiang’s cotton industry.
“The development of my country’s cotton seed industry has achieved remarkable results. A number of excellent cotton varieties have been introduced and bred, and seed production and processing capabilities have been significantly improved.Management will be more orderly and a mature and complete seed industry system will be formed. “Jiang Ping’an, president of Xinjiang Agricultural University, said that in recent years, Xinjiang has continuously optimized the cotton variety structure to solve the problems of multiple cotton varieties and poor consistency of raw cotton quality.
Last year was the year of cotton quality improvement in the autonomous region. The agricultural and rural departments of our region focused on the high-quality development of the cotton industry, guided the production layout to concentrate on advantageous cotton areas, and optimized cotton varieties. Structure, the number of cotton varieties over 10,000 acres in the region has been reduced from 64 to 45, and the quality of cotton is significantly better than the previous year.
With the strong support of the country and the autonomous region, Xinjiang’s cotton breeding scientific research environment, talent, technology and other conditions have been continuously improved, supporting the development of improved cotton varieties and methods, the integration of agricultural machinery and agronomy, and high-quality and high-yield Collaboration and ecological production harmony provide key technology and variety support, and effectively promote the development of the cotton industry in the direction of scale, standardization, mechanization, intelligent, and informatization.
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