Talent is the primary resource for the development of new quality productive forces, and is an important support for promoting the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas and agricultural modernization. As an important talent gathering place, Shanghai is shouldering an important responsibility in building a platform for attracting high-level talents and reforming the talent development system and mechanism. General Secretary Xi Jinping asked Shanghai to firmly grasp the general direction of scientific and technological progress, the general trend of industrial revolution, and the great measures to gather talents, and "give full play to the advantages of Shanghai's high degree of internationalization and widely gather outstanding talents from all walks of life". In recent years, the Municipal Agriculture and Rural Committee has taken talents as the strongest driver for the innovation and development of rural revitalization, continued to optimize the talent evaluation system, and solidly promoted the cultivation of various talents.
Wu Shujun, Director of the Rice Research Center of the Institute of Crop Breeding and Cultivation, Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences
"Shanghai is an international metropolis, and citizens will have higher requirements for quality and taste, and will not only be satisfied with eating enough, but also eating well." In 2006, after graduating from Yangzhou University with a doctorate, Wu Shujun came to work at the Crop Research Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Over the past ten years, Wu Shujun has presided over and participated in the breeding of 15 japonica rice varieties approved by Shanghai, presided over the completion of 10 varieties transfer, and achieved remarkable results in the industrial application of varieties.
Among the many high-quality rice varieties bred by Wu Shujun, "Shanghai Soft 1212" has won the national rice competition laurel for many times, and won the gold medal of the first national high-quality japonica rice variety taste quality evaluation, which is the first japonica rice variety in the southern rice region of mainland China to win this honor, and has been widely used in the suburbs of Shanghai and the Yangtze River Delta region. In 2022, Wu Shujun was selected as a leading agricultural talent in Shanghai; In 2023, he will be selected as a Shennong Young Talent of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs; In July this year, he was selected as the leading project of the Oriental Talent Program.
Set a goal to breed high-quality rice
Wu Shujun said frankly that at that time, most rice breeders in the Yangtze River Delta region took high yield as the breeding goal, and when he first arrived, he decided to start with quality and overtake in the "good quality".
"Fan Hongliang, a veteran teacher of the Crop Institute, selected and bred 'Jinfeng', 'Hanfeng' and 'Qiufeng' in the last century are all high-quality japonica rice, and I believe that efforts in this direction will bear fruit." He was about to do a big job, but Wu Shujun found that the less than 4,000 rice breeding materials that had been passed on to him were not resistant to the main disease at that time - rice striped leaf blight. In order to breed new varieties with good quality and disease resistance, he has successively introduced thousands of breeding materials from his breeding peers and the germplasm resource bank of Shanghai Agricultural Biological Gene Center, and set sail again.
The rich aroma and soft glutinous taste have now become the typical characteristics of the excellent quality of japonica rice in the Yangtze River Delta region. But at that time, Wu Shujun first focused on the rare "fragrant rice" on the market and selected fragrant japonica rice. In 2013, he presided over the selection and breeding of "Huxiangjing 106", which passed the Shanghai variety approval, and two years later, "Huxiangjing 151" came out. On this basis, he also assisted Jinshan District in the selection and breeding of "Jinnong Xiangjing 1267", these new varieties not only have obvious aroma, but also have a better taste than the suburban Xiushui series of japonica rice varieties at that time. The "Breeding and Application of New Varieties of High-quality Aromatic Japonica Rice" presided over by him won the second prize of the 2020 Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award.
If fragrant japonica rice is the primary version of his breeding goals, then the soft rice varieties with soft and waxy taste are the upgraded version of his breeding goals. In 2007, Wu Shujun introduced the "05047" variety resource with soft rice genes from the Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, which was later widely planted "Nanjing 46". Wu Shujun crossed "05047" with "Jinfeng" and other high-quality japonica rice germplasm, and finally bred a new variety "Hu Soft 1212" with a more crystalline appearance and softer taste after careful selection for many years and generations, and with the blessing of the excellent genes of the parent "Jinfeng", "Hu Soft 1212" showed excellent storage resistance. Since then, Wu Shujun has successively selected and bred National Day rice varieties such as "Hu Zao Xiang Soft No. 1" and "Hu Zao Jing 193", which have a soft and waxy taste, as well as "Hu Xiang Soft 450", which has a slightly later maturity than "Hu Ruan 1212". By planting three varieties with different ripening periods in the morning, noon and evening, the production base can continuously harvest high-quality rice from early September to late October, helping to build a rice brand.
Follow this arduous journey to reach the stars
Anyone who knows about breeding knows that every new breed goes through a lengthy process of experimentation and rigorous selection by breeders. From August to November, Wu Shujun had almost no days off, and when the sun set for countless days, he still lingered in the breeding experimental fields, observing one plant after another, looking for the rice plant that could surprise him.
Wu Shujun said that counting the iteration of Nanfan, it will take at least 7 years to successfully select and breed a new variety. In addition to continuously breeding more new varieties, he also does not forget to improve the high-quality varieties he has bred. Since 2019, he has spent a lot of energy on improving the resistance of "Husoft 1212" rice blast, and in 2023 he has achieved success. From this year, farmers will no longer need to worry about the occurrence of rice blast when planting this variety, and the yield and quality will be better guaranteed.
In recent years, a series of high-quality japonica rice varieties bred by Wu Shujun have significantly enhanced the influence and provenance advantages of Shanghai japonica rice in China, and the total amount of transformation of variety transfer and technical services has reached 6.17 million yuan, which has effectively boosted the application of the results. At present, the series of high-quality and high-efficiency japonica rice varieties bred by the Rice Center team account for more than 40% in the suburbs of Shanghai, and have been promoted in the Yangtze River Delta region for more than 600 million mu, providing important provenance support for promoting the industrialization and brand development of high-quality japonica rice in the Yangtze River Delta region.
When asked about the secret of success, Wu Shujun replied, "If I can count myself as successful, I think there are three important points: one is to set a forward-looking goal, the second is to persevere, and the third is to be willing to take the time." Wu Shujun hopes that in the future, he can play a leading role in the technological innovation of japonica rice breeding and the breeding of major varieties in Shanghai, cultivate more, better and better new varieties of japonica rice, strengthen industrial application, and contribute more to the high-quality development of the high-quality rice industry in Shanghai and the surrounding Yangtze River Delta region.
Text: Shi Xianyun
Photo by Zou Jiahao Some of the photos are provided by the interviewee