"Zhongmian 113" Is Called "Pioneer Crop"

"Zhongmian 113" is in the harvest period. Photos provided by interviewees

Clothing is as important as eating. In recent years, "cotton seed", which mainly solves the problem of people's dressing, has repeatedly brought surprises.

In June last year, "Zhongmian 113" took the Shenzhou 12 manned spaceship to launch the space journey, opening the prelude of China's independent space station space breeding; Before that, in January 2019, the "CCRI 41" took the chang'e-4 to plant "the first green" on the moon, which attracted the attention of the world... Many people may not know that from "CCRI 41" to "Zhongmian 113", the cotton seeds entering space were all from the Cotton Research Institute of China Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Anyang.

Why is a small seed chosen frequently by the aerospace industry? Cotton is known as the "pioneer crop" on land, which is resistant to salt and alkali, drought and flood. "In the abnormal adversity conditions, still stand out, show their own characteristics incisively and vividly." Ma Xiongfeng, deputy director of the CCRI, said in an interview on March 18 that "after space training, the germination rate, disease resistance and other traits of seeds may change, and the new varieties bred from this may have higher yield and higher quality."

The surprise brought by China cotton is far more than "heaven". In the early 1990s, cotton bollworm broke out year after year, and cotton production in China was on the verge of extinction. The CCRI has successfully cultivated two important varieties, namely "CCRI 29" and "CCRI 41", by cooperating with superior units to tackle key problems. Among them, "CCRI 41" is the first bivalent transgenic insect resistant cotton variety with independent intellectual property rights in China. Driven by these two varieties, the market share of domestic insect resistant cotton increased rapidly from 5% in 1999 to 98% in 2012, which completely broke the monopoly of foreign varieties.

Nowadays, with the adjustment of China's cotton regional pattern and the reform of planting mode, how to plant good cotton, let the national cotton surpass the "American cotton" and catch up with the "Australian cotton", has become a new topic of the CCRI. "Just as we were able to develop our own transgenic insect resistant cotton varieties, now we have to use domestic high-quality cotton to withstand the impact of imported cotton." Ma Xiongfeng said.

What is high quality cotton? In the cotton quality supervision and testing center of the Ministry of agriculture and rural areas of the China Cotton Research Institute, Meng Junting, a senior experimental engineer, took out a ball of cotton, sorted out a neat bundle of cotton with the length method of hand pulling, and then pulled it hard. "You see, the fiber length is 31 mm, the strength is 32 CNU / tex, and the length and strength reach double 30, which is an important indicator to measure high-quality cotton."

What Meng Junting is holding is "Zhongmian 113", a high-quality cotton variety just approved in 2019. "Zhongmian 113" has successfully broken through the technical bottleneck of early maturity, high yield and high quality, which is difficult to be improved cooperatively. It has realized the double improvement of yield and fiber quality, and filled the vacancy of cotton varieties planted in low accumulated temperature and cold areas. It has become a "chip variety" to ensure the stable supply of high-quality cotton in Northern Xinjiang and surpass the quality standard of "aomian" Ma Xiongfeng said.

According to statistics, in 2021, the planting area of "Zhongmian 113" in Northern Xinjiang will reach 1.406 million mu, and it is estimated that more than 10 million mu will be popularized in the next three years. At the same time, "China Cotton 113" also entered the countries along the "belt and road" and carried out regional tests in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Cotton is an important economic crop and national strategic material. At present, Xinjiang is the main cotton producing area in China, and the cotton output accounts for nearly 90% of the total domestic output. According to the No.1 document of the Central Committee in 2022, cultivated land is mainly used for the production of grain, cotton, oil, sugar, vegetables and other agricultural products as well as forage and feed. Industry insiders believe that cotton ranks behind grain, and has priority over other agricultural products, which shows the important position of cotton production in domestic agriculture. The "14th five year plan" for the development of national planting industry also clearly pointed out that cotton areas in the Yellow River Basin and the Yangtze River Basin should be moderately restored. During the "14th five year plan" period, the cotton production area should be restored to more than 11 million mu.

"Moderate recovery of the mainland cotton industry is conducive to the long-term and stable development of China's textile and cotton industry." Ma Xiongfeng said, "for our breeders, this is both an opportunity and a challenge. We should firmly grasp cotton technology in our own hands at any time. The Chinese can solve their own problems of eating and dressing."

　 Treasure files

"Zhongmian 113" has successfully broken through the technical bottleneck of early maturity, high yield and high quality, which is difficult to be improved cooperatively. It has realized the double growth of yield and quality, filled the vacancy of cotton varieties in low accumulated temperature and cold areas, and became a "chip variety" exceeding the quality standard of "Australian cotton".

(source: Henan Daily)