A man of good advice on growing better rice
Print Edition
Luo Lijun looks more like a farmer than a scientist. The Shanghai Agrobiological Gene Center that he founded in Minhang District indeed has the look of a farm, with assorted livestock and crops. But looks are deceiving. Luo’s life goal is to improve food supplies and change the future of China.
“I believe grain production is the foundation of people’s lives,” said Luo, 53, who talked with Shanghai Daily recently after receiving a National Scientific Invention Award for his achievements. “Therefore, it is my dream to develop rice that is water-saving and tolerant to arid land.
Rice is a staple of the Chinese diet, and rice cultivation accounts for more than half of the water consumption in the country. In addition, rice fields contribute 20 percent of the country’s total methane emissions.
Developing a more water-saving, environmentally friendly strain of rice has become a vital project for the Hubei Province native.
Luo began his research soon after he graduated from the Huazhong Agricultural University in Wuhan, capital of Hubei. Before coming to Shanghai, he worked at the China Rice Research Institute in Hangzhou, where he began work on development of a drought-tolerant strain of rice in 1998.
He spent backbreaking hours on fieldwork, literally. In rice fields in Shanghai and the provinces of Hainan, Sichuan, Zhejiang, Guangxi and Guangdong, he carefully studied soil varieties and resources.
Move to Minhang
In 2001, he came to Minhang, where he founded his research center.
“We need to plant, compare and screen countless samples of seeds,” said Luo. “The work requires a lot of time and patience. There is no quick success.”
In 2003, Luo and his team eventually cultivated the first paddy and dry rice hybrid, called Hanyou No. 1. That was followed by improved strains, Hanyou Nos. 2 and 3. The rice hybrid saves up to 50 percent of usual water usage and cuts methane emissions by about 86 percent.
“Studying agriculture requires conscientiousness,” Luo said. “We shoulder the burden of food safety and environmental protection, and that needs a strong sense of responsibility.”
In 2006, the Hanyou strains of rice were put to the test. That summer, southern China suffered severe heat and drought. In Sichuan and Chongqing, normal paddy rice plants withered and produced scant harvests, but the Hanyou rice showed harvests of about 500 kilogram for every mu (0.7 hectare). Hanyou also saved the day in Anhui, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong provinces.
“I remember the phone kept ringing at the center,” Luo recalled. “The calls were all about wanting more Hanyou seeds to deal with the drought. Chongqing wanted 10,000 kilograms, Dongyang in Zhejiang wanted 5,000 kilograms, and Yiwu wanted as much as we could provide.”
Another advantage of Hanyou rice is that it is labor-saving. Farmers need only water and weed, but large amounts of chemical fertilizers and pesticides aren’t required.
“It feels really good that a rice variety we developed could free farmers from some of their laborious work,” he said.
Stronger tolerance
Luo said his next goal is to improve the Hanyou hybrid to be more tolerant to different soil qualities.
“Most of the farmland in China is not rich enough to support high yields of paddy rice,” he said. “We need to develop a variety that can further reduce the use of chemical fertilizers so that we can make better use of land and reduce pollution. I hope we can achieve the same rice harvest in low-quality farmland as in fertilized land.”
Luo is actively promoting use of Hanyou rice. The hybrid is now being trialed in several areas, such as Heilongjiang and Yunnan provinces and in Shanghai, and he hopes that cultivation of Hanyou will rise to 66 hectares nationwide this year.
Award from government
“It was gratifying for everyone on my team to win the achievement award from the government,” he said. “But we all aware that there is so much more work to do. The award is actually just a starting point for us.”
Luo’s whole life is consumed by his work.
“When I’m in Shanghai, I am at the center except when I’m sleeping,” he said. “When I founded the center, we had only three people. Now we have nearly 20 scientists doing research here.”
Luo is also a PhD supervisor for his old university, and he has mentored more than 80 students, some of whom have become his colleagues.
“Young people nowadays have big dreams and strong ambitions,” he said. “I often tell them that my biggest expectation is that one day they will do better than me.”
For Spring Festival, Luo spent the holiday in the southernmost province of Hainan with his family. But it should come as no surprise that he also took time to inspect newly grown rice there.
“Our center has an experimental field in Hainan, and we grow some rice at the end of every year as samples for data collection,” he said. “Almost every year I go to see how the rice is growing. It has become a habit.”
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