Chapter 230 Germplasm Resource Bank

On the endless grassland, there are the gentle outlines of rolling grass hills, and the golden grass curled up like waves.

Occasionally there is a tall scaffold, on which stands a goshawk proudly.

There are also photos of goshawks swooping down on mice in the grass, and mouse-catching teams in action.

New life is also sprouting in the moist soil after the ice and snow melt.

What is it like here?

Guo Yang recalled that it was probably a stretch of Gobi Desert, a stretch of rocky mountains, and a stretch of grassland.

Considering the faster accumulation of natural energy, the credit for the management of degraded grasslands is certainly indispensable.

Guo Yang commented: "The grassland restored by artificial grass planting has indeed achieved good results."

In a yurt on the Urad grassland in Mongolian Province.

Bao Xinyu, who is in his thirties, smiled knowingly.

Falcon Agriculture has never had much presence in Jiahe's sector. In addition to the boss's free-range attitude, it is also because the process of managing degraded grasslands is too long.

Last year, the group spent tens of millions of yuan to assist the Mongolian province in controlling rodent infestation in exchange for 60 years of rent-free operation rights for these 20 acres of grassland.

Then the boss promoted him to be the person in charge.

Good man, he was so happy when he was promoted.

But after arriving here, I found that this place is not much different from a barren land. It is full of degraded grasslands, exposed rocks, and even deserts.

Fortunately, alfalfa originated as forage grass, and there is no shortage of high-quality grass seeds.

Ice wolf grass, king grass, and white wormwood are three high-quality grass seeds provided by the group company.

Ice wolf grass can inhibit the growth of poisonous weeds, while king grass and white wormwood are extremely adaptable to the climate of desertified areas.

The three work together to form a powerful tool for controlling degraded grasslands.

By mixing in some other grass species, a complete grassland plant system is formed.

Bao Xinyu posted in the group: "It's a pity that there are too few species of ice wolf grass, king grass and white wormwood. The other grasslands that haven't been supplemented with these three species will not grow well."

Guo Yang: "@Xie Shijie, how is the progress of grass seed propagation?"

Xie Shijie: “We can collect grass seeds in July.”

Bao Xinyu: "That's great. We can replant in the fall."

Qu Yang: "Old Bao, come on, I'll be counting on you for horseback riding, archery, falconry and hunting in the future."

"Hehe, we still have to rely on President Qu and President Xie to do more business and make more profits."

“It’s all about serving the boss.”

Guo Yang saw this and typed, "The on-the-job bonus plan has been released, but I think it needs to be revised. You set the goal too high. Revise it again."

Set it too high?
When everyone saw Guo Yang say this, they were stunned for a while.

Are there any bosses who think the business targets are too high? Wouldn’t the higher the targets, the more money the boss would make?
The group fell silent for a moment.

Guo Yang: "The tone doesn't need to be too high. In addition, the goals and profit distribution plan are not detailed enough, and there are far from enough posts at the grassroots level."

"For example, a city or county has a sales office with only four or five employees, and one employee is responsible for a dozen or so towns. Then this sales office should have an overall goal and a dividend plan. For example, if the sales of pepper seeds are 130 million, the profit is 50..."

“You have to consider the whole picture.”

"The purpose of the on-the-job profit sharing plan is to give back a portion of the profits earned by the company to employees to compensate for the anger they suffer at work."

Qu Yang, Yan Qun, Yu Honghai and other members of the management of Tianhe and Fengkai felt their eyes brighten when they saw this, and after careful consideration, they felt it was enlightening.

The service industry is not immune to being bullied.

Seed production, seed sales, technical services, agricultural machinery after-sales services, etc. all require long-term communication with farmers.

When trying to understand farmers' psychology and explain product features, it is inevitable to suffer anger. It is common for newly employed college students to be angered to tears.

Jiahe places special emphasis on service quality and pays attention to users' consumption experience.

The workers suffered even more.

High salary and good treatment can make you feel relieved.

The operating targets of the on-the-job bonus plan have been lowered, and more grassroots positions have been covered

Then the employees' psychological endurance will increase sharply, and their loyalty and sense of recognition will soar.

This in turn will improve service quality and gain recognition from more farmers and consumers.

This is a virtuous cycle.

That's great!
The only ones who suffer are the shareholders of the company, as it is equivalent to dividing a portion of the shareholders' profits among the employees.

It’s hard to imagine that the boss would make such a decision.

For this group of executives, although their boss treats them well, there is no movement towards employee stock ownership.

With the on-the-job dividend plan, they no longer have this idea.

Because there is no longer any soil for holding shares.

"Boss, you are awesome!"

"The train runs fast, all thanks to the boss. Every wise decision made by the boss makes me admire him."

Guo Yang: "Stop flattering me and get down to work quickly."

"The same on-the-job dividend plans for Shahai, Qinghe and Falcon should also be implemented. Report them first."

Everyone agreed.

Everyone was deeply shocked.

Guo Yang then read some other group messages and then went to the cafeteria to have a meal.

The sandstorm is still blowing, and it will take a day or two to calm down before going to the countryside. There is no need to suffer this.

Just as a coin has two sides, the spring of Jiuquan also has two sides.

On windy and sandy days, the sky of Jiuquan is dim and gray; on sunny days, the sky of Jiuquan is so blue that you doubt its existence.

Took a break in the office.

Thinking that the seed store’s high-quality gene screening had not yet produced any results, Guo Yang contacted Bi Qiang and went to select another batch of germplasm resources in the afternoon.

“A species affects a country’s economy, and a gene is related to a country’s prosperity.”

The importance of germplasm resources is self-evident.

The genes for hybrid rice bred by Yuan Lao come from wild rice, but the fate of wild rice is worrying.

Take Yunnan as an example. It is known as the animal kingdom, plant kingdom, world garden and species gene bank.

In the 20s, there were 80 localities with wild rice populations; now 26 are gone.

The Wujiang rice that Bi Qiang had collected was in the same situation.

Soybeans are a painful lesson.

To date, China's soybean production is only 70% of the world average, and 50%-60% of that of the United States, Argentina and other countries.

All this is because a large amount of our country’s biological germplasm resources have been lost overseas.

Jiahe’s germplasm resource bank belongs to Tianhe Seed Science Academy Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Tianhe Seed.

It covers an area of ​​about 25 acres and has a preservation building and a comprehensive building for the germplasm resource bank, as well as supporting auxiliary rooms, greenhouses, germplasm nurseries, and sheds.

The total investment of the project is nearly 5000 million yuan.

Construction began in 2003 and took two years before it was put into use last year. It is one of the top germplasm resource banks in the entire Northwest region.

Moreover, this was built by a company, not a public welfare project funded by the state.

When Guo Yang saw Bi Qiang, he was waiting outside the storage vault in a white coat.

Bi Qiang smiled and asked, "What kind of seeds do you want? There are many types at present, including grains, grasses, fruit trees, and special plants."

Guo Yang thought for a while and said, "I need 10 seeds that have been screened and identified." In the cold storage of the germplasm resource bank, seeds are quietly placed in glass jars, dormant.

Theoretically, it can be preserved for thousands of years.

The extinction of seeds does not mean their physical disappearance, but rather their loss of the ability to evolve, which is the consequence of the loss of seed diversity.

Therefore, germplasm resource banks are also called the ships of life, preventing seeds from becoming extinct due to natural disasters and germplasm degradation.

Improve existing crop varieties, and possibly even break through species limitations and interspecific hybridization bottlenecks to create new traits or new crop varieties…

Scientists even imagine that these seeds may be able to go into space in the future and create a new world on a suitable planet.

In fact, Guo Yang was mainly cultivating corn, wheat and rice seeds this time, but the seed stores were restricted by species and faced bottlenecks in inter-species hybridization.

Therefore, he needs to keep a record of every high-quality gene.

At present, the breeding research and development team led by Bi Qiang is also doing this work, but it is definitely not as fast as his.

...

In Tianhe’s seed resource library, there are seeds introduced from various universities in the early stage to replenish the inventory, as well as seeds collected later by Bi Qiang and the collection team.

The collected seeds have to go through multiple processes before they can be stored.

In the seed cleaning room, Guo Yang saw researchers pouring seeds into the separator. The full seeds fell down and the empty seeds were blown to the other side.

At the same time, random X-rays will be taken to clearly show whether the seeds are empty or full.

The healthy seeds left after sorting will continue to be cleaned, inspected, counted, etc.

Then there is another series of procedures before the data can be stored in the warehouse.

Bi Qiang found two military coats.

He put one on himself and gave one to Guo Yang.

When I opened the cold storage door, the cold air hit me in the face.

Glass bottles are neatly arranged on the shelves, and the barcodes on the bottles indicate the seed storage location and germplasm information.

Bi Qiang turned around and looked at Guo Yang, exhaling white mist from his mouth.

"Generally, we need to collect and preserve 10000 seeds of each plant, and at least 2 seeds."

"These are seeds that have been stored in the warehouse. They are divided into two parts, one in the backup warehouse and the other in the active warehouse. The former is permanently stored, and the latter is used for germination tests."

"Some of the products that have been screened and identified are in another room at a constant temperature and have not yet been put into storage."

Bi Qiang carefully took the seeds while explaining the situation to Guo Yang.

“Don’t spend a lot of money on seeds in the future.”

"Previously, many of the seeds you introduced from colleges and universities were duplicates."

"Of the 1000 germplasm resources, only 175 can be temporarily preserved after checking for duplicates and comparing them."

Guo Yang was stunned.

No wonder all the major colleges and universities at that time tried so hard to give Tianhe seeds.

Bi Qiang continued, "It's okay. Colleges and universities also have germplasm resource banks. The high-quality genetically modified crops that have been screened out must not have been taken out."

“Once the existing resource identification is completed, resources can be shared.”

Germplasm resources are important strategic resources and the basis for the selection and breeding of new varieties.

Units with germplasm resource banks can carry out breeding through hybridization, seedling growth, radiation mutagenesis, and mining of superior functional genes.

Resource sharing has comprehensively enhanced the breeding capabilities of each party.

Guo Yang is looking forward to that day.

With a seed store, he can dig out the dominant genes of a seed in just a few seconds.

First, the seeds were taken out of the cold storage, but they could not be taken out immediately. An adaptation process is needed from low temperature to normal temperature.

I went to the normal temperature warehouse to get the seeds.

Guo Yang then discussed Tianhe's breeding system with Bi Qiang while waiting for the seeds to recover from dormancy.

Because Guo Yang has always regarded Tianhe Science Academy and Laboratory as a cover for breeding, he has never paid much attention to it.

As a result, the system is in place and there is money available, but it has always been in a state of disarray.

Bi Qiang has only been in charge for two or three months.

We thought of starting from the germplasm resource bank, building a base for accurate identification of germplasm resources, and further conducting molecular identification based on phenotypic trait identification.

Then the functional genes were deeply mined.

In particular, Jiahe has always been keen on superior genes such as cold resistance, drought resistance, and salt resistance.
Then, on this basis, breeding transformation is carried out to cultivate new crop varieties with high quality and high added value, suitable for simplified and mechanized production, and with outstanding commercial value.

After making commercial contributions, we will further build and overcome key core breeding technologies such as the utilization of new-generation hybrid advantages, efficient and precise editing of multiple genes, compound mutagenesis, breeding chips and genotyping, and whole genome selection.

Finally, Jiahe’s modern biological breeding system was completed.

Bi Qiang smiled and said: "This is a long-term career. It is worth it even if you spend ten, twenty years, or even a lifetime to complete it."

Guo Yang listened to Bi Qiang's plan, and found the logic and ideas very clear.

But to really complete it is as risky as the seed collection process. You may get caught on poisonous branches at any time, which is excruciatingly painful.

Bi Qiang's eyes were firm and full of fighting spirit.

Guo Yang was also sincerely happy that he had found a new goal. It was always safer to stay in the laboratory.

Seed collectors are everywhere.

From desert Gobi to tropical rain forest, from the roof of the world to the Sanjiang Plain...

There are many pioneers who lost their lives for this.

Therefore, Guo Yang and Bi Qiang also proposed to improve the talent team system and ensure the incentive mechanism.

For the excellent seeds cultivated, whether the company transfers them or develops them on its own, the breeding team can receive a one-time or lifetime reward.

In the evening, Guo Yang took the seeds and prepared to go back, and hugged Bi Qiang's shoulders.

"Maybe it won't take a lifetime, or even 20 years. As long as you are here, Jiahe's investment in breeding research and development will only increase, not decrease."

Guo Yang looked back again, "Perhaps in a few years, Jiahe's R&D investment will reach or even exceed that of multinational seed companies."

Bi Qiang smiled and said, "Then you have to make as much money as possible."

The R&D expenses of large multinational seed companies generally account for more than 10% of their revenue. For example, Pioneer's R&D expenses in 05 were in the tens of billions of yuan.

"Just watch me perform."

Guo Yang walked out laughing.

Tianhe is now rich, so it is only natural for it to comprehensively enhance its breeding capabilities.

Seed shops have a natural energy demand, and after the consumption restrictions on high-grade seeds have been lifted, they naturally focus on cultivating high-grade germplasm.

The seeds at the grassroots level were given to Bi Qiang.

The sandstorm is still blowing.

When Guo Yang returned to the office, it was already past the end of get off work time, but Qu Yang was still waiting for him.

"Boss, Tianyu No. 1 will not be able to enjoy the subsequent subsidies for improved varieties from Liaoning Province."

"Northern Anhui and Jilin Province also have this trend at present."

"Zhengdan 958 was also affected by the price limit."

Guo Yang looked at him in surprise, "Local protection forces?"

Qu Yang nodded with a heavy expression.

Guo Yang laughed.

"It's really a blessing that someone sends a pillow just when I feel sleepy. It's just in time!"

(End of this chapter)