African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1105 Chapter Hybrid Rice
In the end, due to considerations of its own interests, France was forced to give French Gabon to Germany under the pressure of Germany.

At this time, Germany was superior to France in all aspects, at least in terms of industrial data and military strength, so France was at a disadvantage in the negotiations from the beginning. However, France did gain something from this Moroccan crisis.

Germany's aggressiveness also made the British more vigilant against Germany and further improved their attitude towards France.

……

1911 8 Month 2 Day.

Institute of Agricultural Studies, Luanda, West Coast Province.

The Luanda Agricultural Research Institute is located in the northeast of Luanda. The institute has large experimental fields for introduced crops and is one of the core agricultural research institutions in western East Africa established in 1893.

Its important role is to introduce agricultural varieties from the South Atlantic region and to add high-quality agricultural varieties from East Africa through research and demonstration.

Today is the day of rice harvest at Experimental Field No. 0273 of the Luanda Agricultural Research Institute. Many members of the institute have gathered at Experimental Field No. 0273 to prepare to evaluate the agricultural varieties in the experimental field.

Director Andre and many researchers personally took up the task, harvesting the crops bit by bit with sickles. Because the planting area was not large, everyone completed the follow-up work quickly.

After the threshing was completed, Andre said excitedly, "Get on the scale!"

After a short while, the results came out.

"Professor Andre, the final calculation shows that the yield is about 75 kilograms per acre."

Hearing this result, Andre sighed and said, "It still didn't meet our expectations, but it's still acceptable."

Caird, an intern who had just entered the institute, asked, "Senior He Bo, the rice variety here seems to be very different from the rice variety we usually grow."

The researcher named He Bo nodded and said, "Yes, you just arrived not long ago, so you don't know. This kind of rice is currently only studied in our institute in East Africa. It is different from all the rice varieties currently widely planted in East Africa."

Caird asked, "Is it a new species introduced from the Far East?"

"Not really." He Bo shook his head, and then said seriously: "This kind of rice has a great origin. The reason why Professor Andre attaches so much importance to it is because this kind of rice, let's call it West African cultivated rice, the biggest feature of which is that West African cultivated rice comes from West Africa, not Asia."

As we all know, East Africa is a country dominated by rice cultivation. The rice planting area exceeds that of many crops, making it the current largest staple food in East Africa. Almost all the rice varieties currently planted in East Africa are introduced from Asia.

Andre heard the conversation between the two students and said earnestly, "What He Bo said is right. We collected these rice species from thirteen locations in West Africa, and they have broken our previous understanding of rice species."

"In the past, all of my country's rice varieties were introduced from Asia, especially the Far East Empire. At the same time, due to the lack of early research and cognition, as well as the lack of foreign exchanges, the mainstream of Chinese agriculture at that time believed that there were no native rice varieties in Africa."

"But in 1897, during a foreign agricultural species collection activity organized by the Ministry of Agriculture, our researchers first discovered this native African rice variety grown by local black people in the Niger River Basin in West Africa."

Except for the wild short-tongued wild rice, most of the rice seeds collected from West Africa are lepidium rice, or African rice seeds, which correspond to Asian rice seeds that originated from the Far East Empire. Andre continued, "Through our research, we have demonstrated that the lepidium rice in West Africa may have originated from the wild short-tongued wild rice. The two have many similarities, and lepidium rice retains many of the original ancestral characteristics of the short-tongued wild rice."

"However, due to various reasons, the yield of this native African rice variety is difficult to be compared with that of Asian rice, and its variety is far less extensive than that of Asian rice. We have only found two varieties of rice with unclear differences, which may be differentiated in the future."

The so-called various reasons are fundamentally due to the fact that the agricultural technology of black people is too backward. Take lehde rice and Asian rice as an example. The Far Eastern Empire began to artificially cultivate rice tens of thousands of years ago, while the history of lehde rice may be only two or three thousand years.

Moreover, African blacks are not good at farming, which means that only a small amount of rice is planted in the Niger River Basin, where it is native, and the methods are very crude. In the absence of artificial breeding, the yield of rice is naturally difficult to compete with Asian rice.

The yield of Asian rice currently grown in East Africa is generally over 170 kilograms, and in experimental fields the record has even reached 432 kilograms.

The yield of the experimental field of granulated rice was only 75 kilograms. The gap between the two is very obvious. Without the various high-quality conditions and careful care of the Luanda Agricultural Research Institute, the yield would be even lower.

Caird then raised his own question: "Professor Andre, since the yield of this rice is far lower than the Asian rice currently grown in our country, what is the point of studying it?"

Professor Andre was not displeased by the student's question. Instead, he said complacently, "For our Institute of Agriculture, it is indeed important to increase species yields and breed high-quality varieties. But what is a high-quality variety is much more complicated. Take lehnia rice for example. I knew before planting that this rice variety had a low yield, so I was mentally prepared."

"So what do I fancy? The answer is other characteristics of lepidium rice. As a local rice variety cultivated by black people in West Africa, lepidium rice is likely to have evolved from short-tongued wild rice."

"So lepidium rice is naturally suitable for the climate characteristics of West Africa. If you have a good knowledge of geography, you should know that the climate of West Africa is similar to that of many areas in East Africa, that is, the tropical savanna climate type."

"Moreover, as a continent, West Africa is basically the same as my country in terms of species evolution and diversity. This involves the fact that the long-term cultivation of leach rice on the African continent has developed stronger resistance to local pests and diseases and climate."

He Bo continued to ask: "But how should the research on this variety be transformed into practical application results!"

Andre said: "The problem you are worried about does exist, but I can tell you something that you can't get in college, that is rice hybridization technology. This technology is to hybridize two types of rice to obtain the advantages of both rice, and then cultivate a more advantageous rice variety. At present, the Mbeya Rice Research Center has achieved initial results."

"If the hybrid rice technology of the Mbeya Rice Research Center achieves a breakthrough, then our lechon rice will no longer be useless. In the future, we can use hybridization technology to combine the advantages of lechon rice with other rice varieties and transfer the advantages of lechon rice to new rice varieties."

"The characteristics of lepidium rice, such as drought resistance and resistance to local pests and diseases, can be applied to rice production in my country in the future."

East Africa is actually the current center of the world's rice research field. Among the world's powerful countries, only East Africa and Japan use rice as their staple food.

Compared with East Africa, Japan is relatively backward, and it has been frantically expanding its military in recent years, making it unable to concentrate on other areas. Therefore, East Africa has become the most developed country in the world in rice cultivation technology research.

Hybrid rice is one of the key agricultural research projects in East Africa at the current stage. However, hybrid rice research requires the right time, place and people, and it is difficult to produce results in a short period of time. East Africa's research on hybrid rice projects began in the 1990s, and it has only been more than ten years.

This was carried out under Ernst's "insignificant" guidance on East African science based on his memories of high school biology in his previous life. However, hard work pays off, and after establishing the correct research direction, the Mbeya Rice Research Center in East Africa was the first to achieve success.

(End of this chapter)