The rise of nanometers

After stopping for a while in Zitong County, Huang Xiuyuan's motorcade continued north, passing through Guangyuan and entering the Hanzhong area.

The convoy arrived near Qingqiaoyi on the north side of Hanzhong.

This seemingly ordinary town hides two very important institutions. In the mountainous area about two kilometers west of Qingqiaoyi, there is a group of buildings surrounded by mountains and rivers. They are all made of new materials. The roofs Dense solar panels are installed.

When Huang Xiuyuan got out of the car, he saw Qin Lizhang, whom he hadn't seen for several months, and another elegant middle-aged man.

"Old Qin, long time no see."

Qin Lizhang stretched out his hand to shake his hand and said with a smile: "Xiu Yuan, I didn't expect you to come here in person."

"I came over to inspect the seed bank and take a look at the situation of the Qinling class."

"Chairman." The elegant middle-aged man is a plant seed scientist recruited by Fengmin Agriculture from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He is responsible for the construction and seed collection of the Qinling Seed Bank.

Huang Xiuyuan turned his head and asked: "Dr. Lin He, how is the construction of the seed bank going?"

"The first phase of the project has been completed, and the second phase is now under construction." Lin He answered as he walked.

Huang Xiuyuan and his party came to the first phase of the seed bank project, where 12 professional seed storage banks have been built. All seed banks are semi-buried in design, and more than four-fifths of the area is embedded in the mountains and underground rock formations.

This is a doomsday defense-level seed bank. In addition to solar panels and batteries, each seed bank has an independent diesel generator set, independent refrigeration system, and intelligent system.

It is enough to resist a nuclear explosion at close range. As long as the nuclear explosion is not within 5 kilometers of the surrounding area, the seed bank can maintain low-energy operation for 80 years without external energy.

Even without cryogenic freezing and energy, the seeds inside can still be stored in a sub-vacuum container for hundreds of years.

This is only one of the five large-scale doomsday seed banks in China. In addition to Fengmin Agriculture's Qingqiaoyi seed bank in Hanzhong, there is also COFCO's seed bank in Ebao, Qilian Mountain, Qinghai, and Beidahuang's seed bank in Daxinganling. Two are carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, one in the Taihang Mountains and the other in the Dabie Mountains.

"How many seeds are stored now?"

Lin He replied without thinking: "There are 15,735 kinds of seeds or tissues of plants, with an average of 300 seeds for each plant, which will be stored in three different seed banks."

After thinking for a moment, Huang Xiuyuan ordered: "Cooperate more with the Academy of Agricultural Sciences to increase the collection of wild plant seeds in China, Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, Central Asia and Siberia."

"The chairman can rest assured that cooperation to protect the genetic resources of wild plants has always been the direction of our efforts."

"In the past few years, due to industrial development in China, many biological resources have been on the verge of extinction. You should pay more attention and preserve the genes of these rare plants as much as possible. If they are useless now, they may be used in the future."

"The chairman has foresight and biological genetic resources are indeed very important." Lin He, as an expert in this field, naturally knows the current situation in the country. If he does not step up the protection of these genetic resources and wait until these plants or animals become extinct, he will really regret it. In time.

Especially in recent years, genetically modified crops have been planted in many areas. The safety of genetically modified crops itself will not be discussed in depth.

However, genetically modified crops are generally highly resistant to the poison of glyphosate. Farmers can spray glyphosate to eliminate weeds in farmland. In the process, a large number of native wild plants are produced. Resources were wiped out together.

Another issue is the genetic contamination of genetically modified crops. Many people think that genetically modified crops cannot be planted. In fact, the environmental adaptability of organisms is very terrible. They seem to have lost their ability to reproduce under the "transformation" of humans. In fact, There is no absolute castration.

German scientists directly experimented with planting genetically modified crops in outdoor farmland. As a result, genetic crossover occurred between genetically modified crops and related wild plants. This is the so-called genetic contamination.

As the core production area of ​​genetically modified technology, among non-GMO crop varieties in North America, 50% of corn, soybeans, and 83% of rapeseed have been detected with genetic contamination.

Although contaminated normal varieties only account for 0.05 to 1% of the yield, genetically modified crops have been proven to cause genetic crossover with related plants.

This situation is definitely not good news for wild plants.

In particular, China is the origin of soybeans, and there are a lot of wild soybean genetic resources in Northeast Asia. Once genetically modified soybeans are planted on a large scale in the Northeast, the wild soybean resources in the Northeast may face annihilation.

Some people may say that if wild species become extinct, they will become extinct, and it will not affect the crops grown by humans, so why worry about wild plants.

If you really think so, then Banana will call you an expert.

Back in 1950, the most widely planted banana variety in the world at that time was called "Big Mac". This kind of banana had a thick skin and a strong flavor, was very durable for storage and transportation, and was very popular.

However, a sudden epidemic wiped out the entire "Big Mac" breed within a few years.

A fungus called "Fusarium oxysporum" was the main culprit of this mass extinction of bananas. Farmers at the time called the disease "Panama disease" or "banana cancer."

Because there is no cure for Big Mac bananas infected with Fusarium oxysporum, we now officially call this disease "Yellow Spot Tropical Type 1".

So why are Big Mac bananas immune to Fusarium oxysporum?

The reason is that the Big Mac banana is a typical triploid, an artificially cultivated variety, and cannot be sexually reproduced.

The real name of the banana we eat today is "Xiangya Banana", which is a small variety cultivated in 1947.

But bananas also have Big Mike's fatal flaw, that is, once they encounter some kind of deadly bacteria, it will be "the rhythm of the whole family."

Therefore, the importance of wild species is definitely not only to protect the ecological environment, but also has a vital impact on the human table.

Once the genes of wild plants are contaminated by transgenes and assimilation occurs on a large scale, if they encounter some deadly bacteria, the consequences may be that the entire species will receive a box lunch together.

Humans may directly lose a genus of plants.

For example, in Asia, where rice originates, large-scale planting of genetically modified rice will cause genetic contamination of local wild rice.

With the current economic structure of small farmers in China, the promotion of genetically modified rice without professional technology and isolation greenhouses will definitely lead to the widespread extinction of wild varieties.

Therefore, Huang Xiuyuan ordered Fengmin Agriculture to establish a seed bank as soon as possible to protect domestic wild plant genetic resources.

Once an organism becomes extinct, it is basically very difficult to recover from genes.

It’s not that Huang Xiuyuan opposes genetically modified crops, but that he opposes the blind use of genetically modified crops. Especially when the country has not yet mastered its own independent genetically modified technology, promoting genetically modified crops will give the ABCD a handle.

Fengmin Agriculture, COFCO, Beidahuang, and the Academy of Agricultural Sciences are also researching genetically modified technology, but they do not have the conditions to promote it for the time being.

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