Agricultural giant since 1983

Chapter 369 Chu Shijian

Hearing this, Mao Zushun was a little at a loss. In his previous scientific research experience, his superiors allocated funds, and then they used the money to do research and complete other tasks assigned by their superiors. Now a company says They could help, Mao Zushun really didn't know what they could do to help.

Fortunately, there were leaders from the province and city at the scene, and this time the senior officials in charge of agriculture also came. He had attended that meeting, so he reminded, "Researcher Mao, Director Li told us at the meeting that His business plans to cooperate with the Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences and local research institutions in Hainan to select and cultivate improved varieties with higher economic benefits. The initial investment is 2000 million, and more will be added in the future according to demand! Our Coconut Research Institute is a domestic The major research institutions in this field, as long as what you say is reasonable, I believe that a large part of the 2000 million will be reserved for research work, don’t you think, Dong Li?”

"Yes, we, Hui Nong, learned from our investigations that the Coconut Research Institute has made many contributions in the past. The female parent has successfully bred 'Wenye 70F78', which is the only high-yielding coconut variety researched by China. It has the characteristics of fast growth and production 1 to 2 years earlier than local high-quality varieties, and the main nutritional components of coconut meat are of high quality. The varieties are similar, and after entering the stable production period, they can produce 3 coconuts per hectare, and Researcher Mao won the title of 'Coconut King'." Li Lei praised, simply speaking, Mao Zushun is Yuan Lao in the field of coconut breeding. The development of Hainan coconut has made outstanding contributions.

"It's all in the past, it's not worth mentioning, it's not worth mentioning!" Mao Zushun waved his hands again and again. He has always been obsessed with research and is rarely praised in person, but like most research institutions in the country today, The Coconut Research Institute is also facing a shortage of funds. Now that someone is willing to fund their research, Mao Zushun didn't care too much, and immediately asked, "Mr. Li, how much funding can you give us? What requirements do you have for our research?" Also, leaders, is this method in line with the regulations?"

"Now the scientific research community is also advocating the combination of scientific research and industry. According to what Li Dong told us before, this cooperation will provide funds and equipment for Huinong. Our local research institutions are responsible for conducting research and producing results according to Huinong's requirements. Finally, the article belongs to the research institution, the patent belongs to Huinong, and after the patent gains economic benefits, the research institution can also share a part of it, which can be used to improve life or continue to do research!" This time there is no need for senior officials to speak, the leader of the Science and Technology Department It helped to explain, "This method can benefit both enterprises and research institutions, and we also support it very much. There are no policy issues."

Li Lei then added, "The specific funding depends on the current situation and needs of the Coconut Research Institute. Our most urgent need now is to reduce the cost of large-scale coconut breeding as soon as possible, so as to solve the problem of planting for the million-acre coconut forest plan." The scarcity of seedlings is a problem, and the long-term plan is to continue to cultivate better high-yield coconuts, and some research projects on comprehensive economic benefit development of coconut groves and control of coconut tree pests and diseases will also be included during the period!"

"That would be great! Speaking of which, our Coconut Research Institute has always been troubled by funding and equipment. When the Coconut Research Station was first established, there was no shortage of land. Although the number of researchers was relatively small, everyone was full of enthusiasm. One One person can be used as two people, but the problem of funding and equipment is not easy to solve. At that time, the country had no money! In the 80s, I accidentally heard that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations supported coconut research, so I tried to get it through relevant national ministries and commissions. Submitted the application, and in August of that year, a $8 research funding application was successful.”

Excited, Mao Zushun talked about the past of the Coconut Research Institute, "At that time, my monthly salary was only more than 50 yuan, and I had never seen so much money in my life. The excitement can be imagined. We use With this money, we bought equipment, trained a group of scientific researchers, and introduced the first 18 new varieties. Our country’s coconut research has entered its first golden age.”

"More than ten years have passed. Although those equipments can still be used, most of them are very outdated. When I visited abroad, I saw the near-infrared rapid component analyzer which is popular in the field of plant breeding in their laboratory. , lyophilizer, high-speed refrigerated centrifuge, atomic absorption spectrometer, gas chromatograph, gel imaging system, PCR instrument, stereo microscope, etc., are all greedy, but when you ask the price, you don’t say anything, hey , With our research funds, it must be unaffordable!" Mao Zushun was very familiar with these equipments, and reported a lot of equipment names without thinking.

"I also saw it when I visited just now. The conditions in our institute are indeed quite difficult!" In fact, Li Lei knew before he came to visit that the coconut research in our country is facing a very embarrassing situation. On the one hand, the country attaches great importance to the coconut industry. On the other hand, the investment in basic research on coconuts is very insufficient. As a leading research unit in the country, the Coconut Research Institute has very few resources available.

As of 2009, the Coconut Research Institute has less than 1000 million fixed assets. These fixed assets include offices, scientific research, residential buildings, office equipment, vehicles, etc., and the total scientific research equipment is only 500 million. That’s all, it doesn’t match up with Hainan’s annual output value of more than 200 billion yuan in the coconut industry, which has led to a long-term lag in the field of coconut basic research. The cost of coconut seedlings has never been reduced. This has also become an important reason restricting the development of Hainan's coconut industry. Now that Li Lei is here, he can finally solve this problem.

"The near-infrared rapid component analyzer, lyophilizer, high-speed refrigerated centrifuge, atomic absorption spectrometer, gas chromatograph, gel imaging system, PCR instrument, and stereo microscope you just mentioned are all fine. Matching, what model you need, you and our company's technical staff will directly connect!" Li Lei is willing to provide funding for these research institutions, but it does not mean that he can hand over the purchasing power to him.

On the one hand, there is no guarantee that no one has other ideas in mind. The purchase of equipment is a hard-hit area of ​​corruption, and he does not want the money he invested to become someone else's; Most of the time, I don't know what type of equipment is the most cost-effective, so Li Lei arranged for professional personnel to do the docking, in order to spend the least amount of money to sell the most suitable equipment.

Mao Zushun didn't think so much, and was directly stunned by the pie that fell from the sky. At the beginning, they got 25 US dollars from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which laid the foundation for the future development of the Coconut Research Station. With so many long-awaited equipment, how many research results can this make?So I thanked him again and again, "Thank you, Director Li, thank you, Director Li, you helped us solve a big problem!"

"These equipments are actually not enough. Plant breeding in advanced countries in Europe and the United States has entered a deeper level. Their research on genetic and molecular breeding is far ahead of us. If we want to catch up, we must have more advanced equipment! So I also plan to sponsor some of your gene sequencing equipment, so that we can catch up with the international advanced level as soon as possible, map out the genetic map of coconuts, and find the key genes for high-yield coconuts, so that we can better complete the breeding work!" Li Lei added road.

In the future, experts from Hainan University and the Coconut Research Institute have indeed made good progress in this area. They have mapped the high-quality reference genomes of tall and dwarf coconuts, revealed the evolution process of monocot chromosomes, and analyzed the growth of tall and dwarf coconuts. The genetic basis of the differences in key traits such as plant height and fiber content, and the key switches that control height have been discovered. After the key genes of these traits are excavated, the next step is to build a molecular breeding system to breed new varieties in more areas.

Generally speaking, the breeding process of fruit trees is longer than that of rice, wheat and other crops. The reason is simple. Rice and wheat can be ripened several times a year, and problems can be quickly found and improved. It often takes several years for fruit trees to bear fruit , which leads to the extension of the research period, and the analysis of the genes can find the key to high coconut yield as soon as possible and shorten the breeding time.

Witnessed by the reporter, Li Lei signed a cooperation agreement with the Coconut Research Institute, and then went to other research institutions to sign similar agreements. For example, when cooperating with Hainan University, Li Lei donated several dedicated An instrument for analyzing lauric acid. The lauric acid in coconut is the highest content in plants known to humans. Lauric acid is also an important raw material for cosmetics. Cracking the molecular mechanism of coconut lipid synthesis and regulation will help extend the coconut industry. Chain, Li Lei knows how big the cosmetics market will be in the future. If he can eat this piece of cake, it is not impossible that the output value of coconut trees will surpass Huafeng in the future.

Then I went to visit the existing local coconut tree seedling base. Nowadays, most of the seedling bases in Hainan adopt the ground breeding model. First, use loose and fertile acidic soil, dig a 15-20 cm wide planting ditch, and then plant the leaves The fruit is buried in the ditch, covered with a layer of plastic film, and watered once a week to promote the rapid germination of the leaves. When the coconut seedlings grow to a height of 10-15 cm, they can be transplanted and planted.

This method is inefficient, so Li Lei discussed with his peers the more common method of raising seedlings in bags, which is to transplant the germinated seedlings into plastic bags, fill them with nutrient soil and raise them in bags. The disadvantage is that seedlings are labor-intensive, the transportation volume is large, and the cost is high. The advantages are high seedling growth rate, high planting survival rate, fast growth, and early production. Ground seedlings are suitable for popular varieties with mature technology, while bagged seedlings are suitable for rare varieties or New immature varieties can speed up the research progress and save precious time.

Various research institutions have come all the way, and Li Lei has spent a lot of money to improve the research on Hainan coconut from breeding, seedling acceleration, seedling raising, transplanting, planting to daily management. These investments may not be seen in the short term. However, if the time is extended to 20 or [-] years, the coconut tree group will definitely get ten times or even a hundred times the return. This is also the normal state of many agricultural projects. Unfortunately, there are too few enterprises that can persist.

Li Lei originally planned to invest 2000 million in these research institutions, but during the visit, he found that the current conditions of these research institutions are really poor. Many research institutions do not even have the most basic equipment, so he had to invest more, otherwise With the passion of these people alone, it may be difficult to achieve results.

This made Li Lei a great benefactor of the Hainan Agricultural Research Unit. Many scientists who are engaged in the research of palm, oil palm and other tropical crops also rushed to seek help when they heard about it. With additional investment, in the end, the money spent on basic research alone exceeded 3000 million.

Many leaders in the same industry were deeply moved, "Mr. Li, we have seen many businessmen, but we have never seen someone who is willing to spend so much money on basic research like you!"

Most of the businessmen who come to them now want approval, land, and purchase of state-owned enterprises. Nowadays, there are so many opportunities to make quick money, and they are not willing to invest in these fields that will not see benefits in the short term in a few months. .

Li Lei smiled and did not answer. Some things always need to be done by people, especially these basic tasks. The sooner the better, otherwise, after ten or twenty years, these shortcomings will become restrictions on development. Deadly noose, isn't that what the chip industry is like?There are many similar regrets in the field of agriculture. In the previous life, I didn’t have enough ability. Now that I have such good conditions, I naturally have to start earlier.

And Li Lei won't lose money, just like the breeding of fine-bred laying hens. If you start early, you only need a small amount of research funds to complete it. If you do it ten or twenty years later, you will have to spend ten times or even a hundred times. cost to achieve a similar effect.

The same is true for coconut breeding. If high-yield coconuts suitable for Hainan can be developed early, then the output of coconut tree beverages can be doubled several times after these coconut forests enter the high-yield period in ten or twenty years. The money invested now is natural. You can earn back ten times and a hundred times.

While investing in research institutions, Li Lei also signed agreements with local governments such as Wenchang, Qionghai, Wanning, Qiongzhong, and Lingshui to contract land to plant high-efficiency coconut trees. After these contracts were signed, Li Lei Lei's work in Hainan has come to an end, and the rest can be handed over to Qu Bin and the others.

Just as he was about to return to Heyang, he suddenly received a call from Wang Shi. Wang Shi's tone on the phone was very anxious, "Dr. Li, have you heard? Something happened to Mr. Chu Shijian!"

(End of this chapter)