Beidahuang Seeds Promoting the Development of "China's Grains" - A Report on How Beidahuang Group Solves the "Issues of Seeds"

Beidahuang Group is crucial to ensuring the national food security and takes irreplaceable role for promoting the development of seed industry and providing fine-quality seeds in China.

In last several years, Beidahuang Group regarded the development of seed industry as an important part of "1213" project system and "double control and one service" strategy and laid solid foundation for the seed industry development. With the leading enterprises as the carriers and the scientific and technological innovation as the core power, Beidahuang Group built a modern seed industry system, comprehensively promoted the integration of vareity breeding and reproduction, and made more efforts to make technological breakthroughs in germplasm resources. With a high sense of political responsibility and mission, Beidahuang Group spared no efforts to provide more seeds for China's grain production.

During the "13th Five-year Plan", Beidahuang Group examined and approved 200 new crop varieties, obtained 87 new plant variety rights, independently popularized over 10 mu of high-quality rice varieties through research and development (1 mu = 0.067 ha.). Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. of Beidahuang Group ranked first in the sales volumes of corn, rice and soybean seeds and its comprehensive strengthen ranked second among domestic seed enterprises. Also, it won many awards, such as "the Most Influential Enterprise of the Year" and "Smart Agriculture Model Case Award".

Innovation creates a bright future and fosters the leading enterprise in the seed industry

Innovation creates the future. As the entity of innovation, enterprises are the new force to promote innovation and creation. It is an important measure for Beidahuang Group to develop a stronger seed industry. Therefore, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. was born in 2001.

After many years of development, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. has developed into a modern large-scale comprehensive seed industry company with various business modules, including R&D, production, processing, sales, service, and import and export. It has established a complete industrial chain and operated multiple crops. It has been rated as a national high-tech enterprise, a national credit backbone enterprise, and a leading enterprise in China's seed industry for many years. The trademark of "Kenfeng" has been recognized as a famous trademark in China.

Independent innovation is gradually integrated into the blood of the staff from Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. They have set up a R&D innovation-driven system with commercial seed breeding as the core, a breeding and processing system with whole process quality control as the core, a marketing system with all-round terminal services as the core, and a "3+1" overall framework of supporting headquarters. A highly efficient operation mode of standardization, procedurization and informatization has been formed.

In last several years, the data showed that the operation of Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. continued to be improved, with an operating revenue of RMB 1.38 billion yuan and a net profit of RMB 123 million yuan in 2019.

According to Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd., compared with other industrial tycoons, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. is still trapped in backward key technology for seed breeding, lack of germplasm resources and low commercial seed breeding level. Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd., invested RMB 400 million yuan to build a 13,000 square meter R&D center, increased investment in science and technology, and constantly strengthened the development and utilization of germplasm resources and developed innovation technology independently. The germplasm resource bank reached 1,000 square meters, with an inventory capacity of 400,000 accessions of germplasm resources. At present, more than 90000 accessions of all kinds of germplasm resources were preserved in the first phase of the project.Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. was the first to develop the "Pipeline breeding" mode. According to the breeding process, it set up the professional teams of germplasm resources research, breeding innovation, biotechnology, genetic technology, product testing, agronomic integration and additional generation by Nanfan breeding in the tropical regions to form an innovation chain. A commercial seed breeding system was established, including the complete division of labor, the cooperation of team members and the assembly line operation.

At present, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. invests more than RMB 80 million yuan in R&D every year so as to effectively ensure the continuous improvement of R&D capacity and level, and accelerate the selection of new varieties. Meanwhile, it developed strong breeding research and development capacity, with more than 400 varieties tested annually and about 30 varieties approved annually.

R&D institutes instill new energy into the development of Beidahuang Group

Seed is the "chip" of agriculture. The development of seed industry depends on science and technology, and the most important core is germplasm resources. Beidahuang Group deeply realizes that only by speeding up the key technology innovation, can it gain the prosperity of seed industry.Therefore, Beidahuang Group gives full play to the role of its affiliate, Heilongjiang Academy of Land Reclamation Sciences. Focusing on the innovation and utilization of crop germplasm resources, it vigorously develops the collection, protection, identification and improvement of germplasm resources, such as the adversity-resistant, high-quality and high-yield rice varieties, early-maturing, density-tolerant and high-yield special maize, high protein and high oil soybean varieties, special cash crops, and organic green fruits and vegetables varieties. "New energy" has been instilled into the core scientific and technological innovation of seed industry.

In order to achieve the goal, Heilongjiang Academy of Land Reclamation Sciences planned to build the germplasm resource genebank of Beidahuang Group. Through existing variety screening, high-quality resource introduction and new variety breeding, it strived to breed 10-12 new varieties of soybean, corn and rice suitable for Beidahuang region in two years, and introduce and developed more than 15 new varieties of cash crops.During the "13th Five-year Plan", a total of 58 new crop varieties were examined and approved by the Academy of Agricultural Reclamation Sciences, including 31 soybean varieties, 10 corn varieties and 17 rice varieties. A total of 10 items of new plant variety protection rights were applied, including soybean 1 item, corn 3 items and rice 6 items.

According to Wang Ping, Director of the Institute of Crop Development of Heilongjiang Academy of Land Reclamation Sciences, the newly approved sweet maize "Kenyutian No.1" in 2020 was the first edible fruit corn in Beidahuang. The long grain rice variety "Kendao No. 51" was famous for its high-yield of 11.5 tons/ha. The lodging-resistant rice variety "Kendao 017" was successfully tested by three severe typhoons. The soybean varieties "Kendou" and "Kenfeng" won the Chinese Agricultural Science and Technology Award and the National Harvest Prize for Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Fishery, and were popularized for over 75 million mu in Heilongjiang Province, with the social benefits of RMB 4.5 billion yuan.

At the same time, Heilongjiang Academy of Land Reclamation Sciences started to tackle key problems of japonica hybrid rice technology in cold regions in cooperation with China National Hybrid Rice R&D Center and Academician Yuan Longping, the father of hybrid rice. After ten years of hard work, the breeding technology system of japonica hybrid rice in cold regions has been initially established, and five dual-purpose japonica hybrid rice seedling sterile lines, two high-yielding combinations and one high-quality combination, were successively selected, which laid a solid foundation for realizing the goal of "hybrid rice in cold regions and prosperity of Beidahuang".

Northern breeding and southern reproduction breaks through regional restriction and speeds up the development of seed industry

Located in the northeast corner of China, Beidahuang has only one season of crop cultivation every year. In order to speed up the development of seed industry, Beidahuang Group adopts the scientific method of northern breeding and southern reproduction. Every year, after the harvest in autumn, the breeding materials are taken to the southern tropical regions in China for variety breeding and reproduction, and after harvest, those materials are brought back to the north. This process will repeat for the whole year. This can shorten the breeding cycle of 3-4 years and greatly accelerate the breeding process.

As for Nanfan breeding, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. has already a 20 years' history in variety breeding in Hainan Province (belonging to a tropical region). Now, Nanfan breeding has already become an important link in its commercial breeding system.

To provide more professional services for the Nanfan works, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. set up a special Nanfan company to provide professional production and daily life services in the whole process for the Nanfan works. "Nanfan Administration Regulations" was issued to regulate the operation and management of Nanfan scientific research and breeding work. In addition, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. is ready to provide professional Nanfan services for the third party.

At the beginning of 2021, Shi Guoyi, an expert for rice breeding of Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. spent the holiday of his eighth Spring Festival in the Nanfan base in Hailuo Village, Sanya City, Hainan Province. "In the past, the hybridization work was carried out in Heilongjiang Province, but the limited flowering duration and the concentration of hybridization time led to a very small number of combinations and a low success rate of hybrid combinations. At the same time, the hybridization between varieties at different maturity stages was restricted." Shi Guoyi said, by conducting the hybridization work in the south, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. has greatly diversified the hybrid combinations, the success rate of hybrid combinations, and effectively improved the breeding efficiency.

At present, the company's rice research team selects more than 5,000 hybrid combinations annually, realizing full coverage of all accumulated temperature zones in Heilongjiang Province. It is the combination of reproduction in the south and breeding in the north that makes new varieties of excellent crops of Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. emerge rapidly.

Over the past 5 years, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. has examined and approved 134 new crop varieties, and released Kenwo series and Longken series of new corn varieties, which have made an important contribution to the reasonable crop rotation, grain yield increase and farmers' income growth in the northern part of Heilongjiang Province. "Longken No. 306", "Longken No. 310" and other new soybean varieties of Longken series have effectively accelerated the upgrading of soybean varieties in the fourth accumulated temperate zone of Heilongjiang Province." Longken No. 2021 and other new aromatic rice varieties with high quality have already filled the blank of early maturing, long grain and high-quality varieties in the second accumulated temperature zone of Heilongjiang Province.

The Nanfan base of Heilongjiang Academy of Land Reclamation Sciences has also made accomplishments in recent years. Based on the national corn industry technology system, it has selected more than 5,600 hybrid combinations and additional generations of 24 lines in the past two years. More than 3,970 rice hybrid combinations were developed in Nanfan base, and more than 10,010 additional generations were selected for F1, F2 and advanced generations. There were 73 F1 combinations and 87 F3 combinations for the soybean to be grown in 154 and 2,557 rows, respectively.

Promoting the integration of breeding, production and promotionThe integration of breeding, reproduction and promotion is a great driving force for promoting seed industrialization, so Beidahuang Group synchronously pushes the production, reproduction and promotion forward when attempting to make breakthroughs in selecting varieties.

At present, with the leading seed production and processing infrastructure in China, Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. has stable and high-quality seed production bases in the Provinces such as Xinjiang, Gansu and Heilongjiang. The technology of mechanical emasculation of maize seeds is becoming more perfect, which creates the basic conditions for the mechanization of the whole maize seed production. From cob storage to finished seed storage, the whole process is automatic, digital and intelligent. The seed processing center built near the Wutong River had 30,000 tons of rice seed processing capacity, and the regional rice seed centralized processing has completed its preliminary layout.

With its own new varieties, new brands and high-quality production base, Beidahuang Group will improve the seed promotion service system, build variety exhibition center, and drive the common development of surrounding rural areas. Beidahuang Group will take Beidahuang Kenfeng Seed Co., Ltd. as the entity to carry out overall planning and develop high standard farmlands. Using high-yield, high-quality and efficient cultivation mode and standardized management means, it has built 30 new varieties exhibition centers. Through demonstration, the high-yield, high-quality and adversity-resistant varieties suitable for local production conditions will be promoted to benefit more farmers.

In the global agricultural competition, the core technology of seed industry is key to the competition. In December 2020, the Central Working Conference listed "solving the seed problem" as one of the eight key tasks of the national economic work in 2021, proposed to "make the technological breakthrough in germplasm resources, and aim to win a battle in the seed industry".

According to Wang Shoucong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Beidahuang Group, as the main force of China's state-owned agricultural economy, the national team in the agricultural field and the ballast stone ensuring the national food security, the national needs and the requirements of the provincial CPC Committee and the provincial governments are the responsibilities of Beidahuang Group. Under the strong leadership of provincial CPC Committee, Beidahuang Group should make the technological breakthrough in germplasm resources, with the new varieties selection of corn, rice, soybean and other major crops as the core and the industrialization of new varieties as the goal. The unified supply rate of improved varieties will reach as much as over 90% so as to make the whole nation realize the dream of great nation for seeds. In the future, Beidahuang Group will shoulder the responsibility in the agricultural field, give full play to its own advantages, make innovations in the seed industry system, breeding system and service system, accelerate the integration of breeding, reproduction and promotion, build an internationally competitive platform for seed industry, and make more farmers access to "China's seeds".