"Only working in the fields is the happiest!" Today, we miss you...

The yield of double-season rice exceeded 1,600 kilograms per mu; salt-alkali tolerant rice was first planted near the sea; the high-yield effect of low-cadmium rice varieties was shown on a large scale...

Unconsciously, Academician Yuan Longping has been gone for more than two years. Whenever we see the unremitting efforts of Yuan Longping's hybrid rice innovation team and the gratifying results they have delivered, we will think of him, as if he had never left.

The dream of enjoying the coolness under the wheat fields, a dream follows a lifetime.

Today is the 93rd anniversary of Yuan's birth. In the eyes of hundreds of millions of farmers, he is the most intimate "peasant scientist". He spent his life developing hybrid rice, working in the fields, and writing scientific papers on the land of the motherland.

Yuan Longping has told many people about his two dreams: one is to grow hybrid rice all over the world, and the other is to enjoy the coolness under the rice plants. It is for these two "dreams" that Yuan Longping has never stopped, and has spent half a century on rice research and has become a loyal guardian of rice fields.

Hunan Province agricultural science and technology personnel Yuan Longping (researcher of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences) (right) and Li Bihu are observing the growth of hybrid rice. Xinhua News Agency reporter Sun Zhongjing (photographed in 1976)

In order to answer the question "Who will feed China?", Yuan Longping devoted his life to the research, application and promotion of hybrid rice technology . He successively researched and invented the "three-line method" (i.e. male sterile line, male sterile maintenance line, and male sterile restorer line) indica hybrid rice, "two-line method" hybrid rice, and super hybrid rice technology system, making great contributions to the Chinese people's efforts to ensure their own food supply and the world's food supply.

Image source: Xinhua News Agency

With the successful breeding of hybrid rice and its widespread promotion across the country, Yuan Longping became famous. In the face of achievements and honors, Yuan Longping did not get complacent, nor did he stop moving forward. He boldly proposed the topic of super-high-yield hybrid rice breeding. In October 1986, he proposed the "Strategic Concept of Hybrid Rice Breeding", which foresightedly envisioned two strategic development stages of hybrid rice, namely, the use of hybrid advantages between species based on the three-line method; the use of hybrid advantages of indica and japonica subspecies based on the two-line method; and the use of distant hybrid advantages based on the one-line method. This is another new peak in the development of Yuan Longping's hybrid rice theory.

In October 1980, Yuan Longping (second from left), my country's first hybrid rice breeder and researcher at the Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, overcame the seed production barrier after more than 10 years of hard research and experiments, with the cooperation of relevant scientific research institutions, making hybrid rice research a complete success and opening up a new way to increase rice production. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Wang Ping

Since the 1990s, Yuan Longping and his research team have made continuous breakthroughs in hybrid rice breeding. In 1996, they developed the two-line hybrid early rice variety "Xiang Liang You 68" with excellent rice quality and 20% higher yield than conventional rice. This is a major breakthrough in China's rice breeding methods, and it is in the leading position internationally.

In 1997, Yuan Longping proposed the morphological model and breeding technical route for super-high-yield hybrid rice to improve photosynthetic efficiency, and began research on "China Super Hybrid Rice". This advanced technology that applies genetics to agriculture once again took the lead in the world.

On January 31, 2012, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir (right) presented the 2011 "Mahathir Science Award" to Yuan Longping (left) in recognition of his contributions to the development of tropical agriculture. Xinhua News Agency

In 2020, the average yield per mu of the third-generation hybrid rice, early and late season rice, reached 1,530.76 kilograms, once again breaking the world record.

This means that if the yield of 250 million mu of hybrid rice in China increases by 100 kilograms per mu, the grain output of Hunan Province can be increased by half.

Academician Yuan Longping once said: "Working in the fields is the happiest thing!" He also said in a cultural interview program: "I have one requirement when I teach graduate students - do you go to the fields? If you don't go to the fields, I won't teach you." Only Yuan Longping understands that behind the word "happiness " there is not only the support of dreams and the help of passion, but also the responsibility to provide food and clothing for mankind.

Today, there are more scientific researchers who have inherited his wishes, continue to climb to greater heights, and constantly innovate, making more contributions to promoting the further development of hybrid rice and industrial technology.

Let us again

In memory of you!

Comprehensive sources: Xinhua News Agency, Guangming.com, National Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, etc.