Chapter 893 Wheat

A military parade shocked most of the world's leaders, and Yannick felt that there was no need to threaten them verbally. After letting the prime minister and foreign minister continue to entertain these people, he came to the German Agricultural Research Institute to inspect the research progress of the "wheat production increase project".

Europe's geographical environment (Europe's overall latitude is very high), so it is not suitable for large-scale rice cultivation. Only Spain and Italy and other countries grow a small amount of rice; most areas use wheat as the main food crop. But even European countries that grow rice and eat rice have completely different eating habits from China. For example, Spain and Italy, the rice they make is in a half-cooked state due to the cooking time. In the eyes of the locals, this keeps the original flavor of the food and tastes better. In the eyes of the French, rice is a dessert. Rice is mixed with sauce and served with tuna and salad; or rice is cooked with milk, sugar and other spices to make pudding.

Arriving at the institute, after a warm welcome ceremony, Yannick went straight to the point and talked about the purpose of this trip. "How is the wheat hybrid research going?"

A project leader in a white coat replied with a look of trepidation. "Your Highness, there has been no substantial breakthrough."

Looking at the fine sweat oozing from his forehead, Yannick smiled and said. "Don't be nervous. I also know that the difficulty of this research is no less than that of the Nobel Prize-winning project. It is not so easy to achieve results."

In fact, he already had the answer to this question. As early as the beginning of the 20th century, in order to cope with the food demand brought about by the rapid population growth, countries have carried out research on the use of hybrid advantages of crops. Around the 1930s, hybrid corn in the United States was the first to be industrialized; and in the 1970s, Yuan Lao in China also industrialized hybrid rice.

As for the hybrid research on wheat, although it started quite early (as early as 1919, research papers on hybrid wheat appeared internationally), until he traveled through time, there were no major achievements in the world's wheat hybrid technology, which was a full 100 years.

The main difficulty is still the genetic problem. In diploid crops (most organisms are diploid), as long as the genes on the two sets of chromosomes remain coordinated and consistent, trait improvement can work. But wheat is hexaploid, and it is significantly more difficult to keep the relevant genes on the six sets of chromosomes coordinated and consistent, and the metabolic network for trait improvement is more complicated. It is also for this reason that it is more difficult for wheat to create a male sterility and recovery system that works and can be stably inherited to realize the utilization of hybrid advantages.

"The project will continue to be studied, but we can't hang on a tree. We have to take other measures." Yannick knew that this research would not be so easy to produce results. He came here in person today to show his attention to this research. After all, he was deeply influenced by the concepts of "food is the heaven for the people" and "having food in hand means no panic". Secondly, he thought of another way to increase wheat production.

That is radiation breeding; using various rays to irradiate wheat seeds, plants, pollen and other organs, affecting its genetic material, changing its heredity, and causing various mutations. However, such mutations do not have a specific direction. For example, some wheat will have no leaves, some wheat will break easily, some wheat will be shorter, and some wheat will have higher yields. Scientists need to select excellent individuals with genetic mutations through artificial directional selection and cultivate them into new varieties.

That is, artificial intervention accelerates the genetic mutation rate of wheat. In the natural environment, the rate of genetic mutation is very slow. This is because organisms use DNA as genetic material, and DNA has double strands, which can play a role in mutual error correction, so that every time wheat replicates itself, only a few genes will mutate, but because genetic mutation is directionless, it is very difficult to select high-yield genetic mutations, and it takes longer.

If wheat seeds can undergo more genetic mutations in a short period of time, the breeding speed will be greatly improved.

After briefly explaining the principles and uses of radiation to these people, Yannick suddenly thought of the "space vegetables" and "space fruits" that were popular in later generations.

It is to send various plant seeds to the sky. There are many high-energy particles in space. These high-energy particles cannot penetrate the geomagnetic lines and the ozone layer to affect the organisms on the ground. However, without the protection of geomagnetic lines and the ozone layer in space, various seeds can receive excessive amounts of high-energy particles, so that their genes change, and the various vegetables and fruits grown after returning to the ground are larger and taste better. There was even a period of time when high-priced fruits and vegetables appeared with space seeds as a gimmick.

However, as various knowledge became popular, Yannick gradually understood that the process was not as simple as the media reported. The seeds did go to space for a tour, but when they returned to Earth, no one knew which of them had a genetic mutation. At this time, breeders needed to cultivate them and select some individuals with genetic mutations. And even if they mutated, this mutation was completely random and there was no pattern at all.

This means that not all seeds that have been in space will produce larger fruits. The fact is that these seeds will produce all kinds of strange fruits after being planted, such as more bitter, more sour, smaller, or even uglier. These mutations are naturally failures and need to be eliminated, leaving those with favorable traits, such as large fruits, good taste, resistance to pests and diseases, and strong resistance to lodging. After artificial selection, hybridization, backcrossing, self-pollination and other methods, we finally get fruits that meet human needs.

However, when reporting, the media likes to select eye-catching species for reporting. Since the fruits are sweeter and need to be tasted on the spot, it is difficult for the audience in front of the TV to feel it; and the brighter colors are not as eye-catching as the larger ones. Therefore, the media always likes to report on the larger space fruits, so the audience falls into the survivor bias and thinks that all the fruits grown from seeds that have been in space are large. In fact, it is a very high probability to pick out two or three high-quality mutant seeds from a thousand seeds.

Now that Germany's space program is in full swing, it is not difficult to take out a "flight" to send these seeds into space. Thinking of this, Yannick immediately asked people to prepare various plant seeds and send them to the space launch base in Algeria.