Chapter 111: Li Denghai, the Father of Hybrid Corn

After the sky darkened for several days, it became bright again.

【Ding Dong——Welcome to watch the historical live broadcast】

[Our protagonist in this issue is Li Denghai, the father of Chinese hybrid corn! ]

During the Qin and Han dynasties, dynasties continued to move forward steadily according to their own needs; however, dynasties after the Tang Dynasty paid more attention to political management. Every dynasty that considered itself orthodox did not want to bear the label of a dynasty that was not famous, respected or admired.

The figures of people from later generations appeared on the sky.

[Rice National Park in Sanya, Hainan, my country.]

Today, let’s talk about the development of agriculture in modern my country.

In the early days of our country, we had to develop everything. We were really poor and it was difficult for people to get enough food.

I have heard the older generation say more than once that they didn’t have enough food to eat, so when they were hungry they drank water until their bellies bulged.

Born in modern society and basically growing up in a county town, the host has no way of imagining what life was like back then.

When I grew up and saw pictures from that period on the Internet, I finally understood what the older generation meant by what they said.

The people of all dynasties feel the same way.

That's right, that's how they are.

It is so difficult to have enough food and clothing.

I don’t know whether their descendants will be able to encounter that good era.

[But do you know that at this time in my country, the double-season yield of hybrid rice per mu has reached 3000 kilograms.

The yield per mu of high-yield fields is about 1000-1200 jin.

The yield per mu of low-yield field is about 600-700 jin.

The wheat yield per mu is generally between 800 and 1100 kilograms.

The corn yield per mu is generally 800-1200 kilograms.

Just mentioning these few, you may still have no idea.

Let’s talk about something that everyone is familiar with, millet, also known as foxtail millet. In the Qin Dynasty, its yield per mu was 150 kilograms. In modern times, it can reach 300-400 kilograms.

Last year, my country's total grain output reached 13908.2 billion jin, setting a new historical high and remaining above 9 trillion jin for nine consecutive years.

Once this information came out, it was like playing Landlord and directly throwing a big bomb at the beginning, which directly stunned all the dynasties.

No matter which dynasty it was, once Tianmu's words went through their heads, they couldn't help but take a breath.

I couldn't believe what I heard.

Qin Dynasty.

Fusu was even more incredulous and was so excited that he could hardly hold the pen.

The court officials, their hearts pounding, used the conversion formula given by Tianmu to convert it into the Qin Dynasty's weight units.

Accordingly, the size of one acre of land has also been adjusted.

But no matter what, this is really amazing.

They have never seen millet that can produce 400 kilograms per mu.

Han Dynasty.

Zhuzhu even covered his heart with his hands.

The measurement units of later generations are really too arrogant.

Trillion!

I can't wait to hear how future generations achieved increased production.

tomorrow.

The people gathered together and rubbed their hands excitedly.

The sky curtain is about to be told, right? Right?

What Tianmu said before was really of no use to them.

At most, they learned some knowledge.

But today, it's different, completely different.

Tianmu is going to talk about an area they have never touched before.

……

[However, achieving such a high yield per mu cannot be achieved overnight.

Today, we will talk about several important leaders in modern agriculture and how my country's per-acre yield has increased so rapidly in just 75 years.

In our country, the three most important staple foods are rice, wheat and corn.

These are also the three major staple foods in the world.

Among them, rice originated from tropical and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa, wheat originated from West Asia, and corn originated from America.

Anchor Feng Xi pulled up the world map, marked three places, and then continued.

[Let’s first talk about the corn that is the farthest from us.]

It was introduced into my country during the Ming Dynasty.

Corn has high nutritional value, is easy to grow, and can be grown in mountainous areas.

This is closely related to the population boom during the Kangxi and Qianlong prosperity of the Qing Dynasty, when corn became popular.

Feng Xi went to the kitchen and took out the corn she cooked. As Feng Xi moved, the attention of people from all dynasties was naturally attracted.

[It’s really delicious. Just boil it in water or steam it and eat it directly when it’s cooked.

The one in my hand is sweet corn. It is fragrant and sweet, and it doesn’t need any side dishes. 】

Except for the Qing Dynasty and the late Ming Dynasty, many people had never seen corn as a staple food.

Now, seeing the people on the sky curtain eating so happily, my stomach can’t help but growl.

Help, why are you so greedy so early in the morning?

Also, it looks like it’s really delicious.

The people were thinking about eating and fantasizing about when they would be able to grow this corn themselves.

The imperial court, however, was carefully drawing the appearance of corn.

Although there were pictures in the previous issue.

But it’s always a good idea to draw more.

tomorrow.

Zhu Di looked at the sky and ate the delicious corn.

He made up his mind, Zheng He, his Zheng He.

Hurry and bring this corn back to me.

No matter what, he must get the corn.

[In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, corn production was not as high as it is today, with an output of only about 200-300 kilograms per mu.

But as we just said, the current corn yield per mu is generally between 800 and 1200 jin.

Everyone must be curious about what happened that led to our country's current corn production.

Here we are going to talk about one person.

His name is Li Denghai, and he is the father of compact hybrid corn in my country.

At the same time, he is also one of the "Top Ten Meritorious Figures in China's Seed Industry" and is known as "Yuan in the South and Li in the North" together with Yuan Longping.

It is also the holder of the record for highest summer corn yield in the history of corn cultivation in the world.

He is also one of the 100 people who have moved China since the founding of the People's Republic of China.

It took 40 years to complete the scientific research work that would have taken more than 120 years to complete.

These are honors he has earned on his own.]
Along with Feng Xi's voice, the sky screen was adding photos and following up with information at the same time.

People from all dynasties were stunned by what they saw.

Northern and Southern Dynasties, Northern Wei.

Jia Sixie was a little dazed and couldn't help wondering, was this really an introduction to an agronomist?

He is one of the “Top Ten Meritorious Figures” and also a Person Who Moved China. I can’t believe it.

Just think about them, when they wrote a book about agriculture, they would always say, "Therefore, the affairs of merchants are omitted and not recorded."

Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes.

Especially looking at his current era, and then looking at the sky.

More sour. …

In fact, it is really incomprehensible to the feudal dynasty's saying that "scholars don't farm, and farmers don't study".

I don't understand why they are just a bunch of bears and yet they look down on heroes.

[When you see this series of achievements, don’t you think that he must have a deeper background and more profound knowledge than most people?

He can achieve such success. 】

"Isn't it?" In their perception, those who are so powerful, or can write books, and can be recognized, aren't they all scholars?

It really has nothing to do with ordinary people like them.

Even if there is, isn't there not even a name left?

They were skeptical, but also expectant.

If he really came from a peasant family, that would be amazing.

Unimaginably powerful.

Qin Dynasty.

Ying Zheng looked at the 100-jin one, then at the 700-jin one, and fell into deep thought.

He doesn't really care about the background of a capable person.

Just like his Great Qin, there are not many real Qin people in the court.

But after he unified the six kingdoms, who dared to say that he was not a Qin person?

Zulong just couldn't help thinking that the millet yield per mu in his Great Qin was 150 catties, while the yield per mu in later generations was 300-400 catties.

It seems that we need to make more use of farmers and let them study carefully how they were achieved in later generations.

The people were even more excited and rubbed their hands.

They thought that they couldn't look forward to corn, but they could look forward to rice and wheat.

……

[Speaking of Li Denghai's background, he was born into a peasant family.

In 1966, after graduating from junior high school, Li Denghai returned to Houdeng Village, Ye County, Shandong Province to work as a farmer.
In 1972, Li Denghai, then captain of the agricultural science team, was shocked when he read in a report that farmers in Country M had achieved a spring corn yield of 1250 kilograms per mu.

After all, the corn yield per mu in Shandong region at that time was only 100-200 kilograms.

People from all dynasties: !!!

Why does this script sound so familiar?

Isn't this the difference between their per-acre yield during this period and the modern per-acre yield?

And then?
They felt as if they were listening to a legendary story.

It seems a bit far away, but the protagonist’s identity and the environment he faces are similar to theirs.

It's inexplicable and very immersive.

……

[When Li Denghai saw the high production in foreign countries, he felt that he should be determined to work hard to enable the Chinese nation to stand among the nations of the world. What the farmers of the United States can do, our Chinese farmers can do too.

Having made a bold statement, he did not just talk and practice, but soon began his learning journey.

Due to the lack of basic theory, Li Denghai studied books day and night and sought advice from experts.

He led the team to plant more than 10 experimental fields to explore ways to achieve high corn yields.

That year, the summer corn yield per mu of Houdeng Brigade increased to more than 500 kilograms, more than double the summer corn yield per mu of the year before.

In 1974, Li Denghai went to Laiyang Agricultural College for further studies.

After entering the school, Li Denghai did not slack off. Instead, he worked hard and forgot to eat and sleep. In just one year, he completed all the courses that would have taken four years to complete!
However, no matter how hard Li Denghai tried, he was unable to break through the bottleneck of 660 kilograms per mu.

Due to climatic reasons, only one season of corn can be produced in the north each year, which seriously restricted Li Denghai's breeding time. When he learned that due to the climate environment of Hainan Island, the number of corn reproduction times could be increased from once a year to three times.

Li Denghai decided to go south to Hainan Island to speed up his breeding experiments.

In 1978, Li Denghai trudged for eight days and eight nights carrying dry food and corn seeds and finally arrived at Litchi Valley in Hainan, thus starting the journey of seed breeding in the south.

He was busy working in the fields day after day, from planting, weeding, fertilizing, spraying, to germination, leafing, and ear formation, and he strictly supervised every link and never missed it. Finally, his hard work paid off.

After numerous experiments, in 1979, Li Denghai finally cultivated the corn variety "Yedan No. 2".

It set a record of 780 kilograms per unit yield in New China, which caused a sensation in the era.

Upon hearing this, people from all dynasties widened their eyes.

It succeeded, it actually succeeded.

That’s so amazing.

"It's all just luck. It doesn't sound that difficult." A scholar muttered.

But he was quickly criticized by the people around him.

"Oh, you said it's not difficult, then go and do it, why are you talking here?"

“That’s right. Don’t you see what Tianmu just said? You learned four years of lessons in one year, observed millions of seeds, and conducted countless experiments. Look at what you can do.

Forget about observation. Have you ever seen millions of seeds in your life?"

The person who was whispering didn't expect that his words could be heard, and was talked back at by others. His face turned red, and in the end he couldn't utter a word.

Finally, he covered his face with his sleeves and ran away.

tomorrow.

Zhu Di believed that he would get corn in the near future, so he ordered people to record it carefully and not miss a single word.

[In the spring of 1979, Li Denghai brought more than 2 kilograms of seeds of "Yedan No. 3" and "Yedan No. 7" bred in the Sanya breeding base back to Ye County, Shandong for trial planting.

At that time, the per-acre yield was measured to be 776.9 kg and 774.9 kg respectively.

It was also from this time that compact, high-yield corn hybrids broke through the upper limit of flat corn hybrids' high-yield capacity of less than 700 kilograms in summer corn areas for the first time.

It caused a great sensation in the entire corn cultivation industry in my country.

Do you know what this means?

At the very least, in our era, it means that in the future, my country will identify compact hybrid corn high-yield varieties as an effective way and main development direction to improve the high-yield capacity of hybrid corn.

To put it simply, hybrid corn will now be mainly compact.

What an achievement this is.

But Li Denghai said, "Although we have broken the record for the highest corn yield per mu in my country, this is still far from enough. We must surpass Country M and prove to the world the strength of the Chinese people!"

Obviously, he is not satisfied with the yield of 700 kilograms per mu, and he wants to move forward.

At this point, let me first explain to you what "flat type" and "compact type" mean.

To distinguish these two types of corn, you mainly need to look at the leaves. Look at the picture on the sky screen.

The leaves of flat corn are flat, so when planting them you need to leave some space between each plant and not plant them too densely.

Because when the density increases, the light transmission in the field is poor, which will lead to longer bald tips, fewer grains per ear, increased empty stalk rate, and decreased thousand-grain weight.

Some varieties may even fall over, resulting in a significant reduction in yield.

For compact corn, the leaves above the cob rise upward, so the corn has better ventilation and air permeability and can be planted more densely.

The left side of the picture on the sky screen is flat, and the right side is compact. You can see the difference if you look carefully. 】

When it comes to food, no one can be careless.

Ming Dynasty, a village.

The villagers gathered together, looking at the picture on the left, then at the picture on the right, and then comparing the two.

"Really? It's quite obvious." The cultured people who could write recorded it on paper, and those who could draw quickly followed suit.

Really, they who only know how to farm on weekdays never thought that there would be someone around them who has the skill of painting.

The man who could draw held a pen in one hand, carefully sketching the shape, while he said, "When I have nothing to do on weekdays, I like to draw on the ground with a branch. I never thought that it would be useful sometimes."

The village chief patted the man on the shoulder and praised him again.

Are you kidding? They have long regarded corn as a crop of the Ming Dynasty.

He had heard that their Majesty had gone out to sea many times.

I didn’t know what to use it for before, I just thought it was a waste of money.

Now, Your Majesty, please charge quickly. Your Majesty is really foresighted. Your Majesty will definitely not miss this great opportunity.

Their corn is right before our eyes.

We should quickly figure out how to grow this high-yield crop.

(End of this chapter)