Scientific research faces thousands of households
Release time: September 17, 2018. With just a gentle spray on the leaves of vegetable crops, the crops themselves can easily degrade pesticide residues in the soil.
He is the recipient of the 12th Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Award and Professor Yu Jingquan from the School of Agriculture and Biotechnology, Zhejiang University. In, he presided over and completed the achievement of “Physiological mechanism and regulation of vegetable crop response to abiotic stress”, which won the second prize of the the State Natural Science Award; In 2017, he presided over the completion of the “Key Technologies and Applications for Barrier Prevention and Control of Protected Vegetable Continuous Cropping” and won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award.
What others haven’t done is what needs to be done
In November 1963, Yu Jingquan was born into an ordinary rural family in Yiwu. At the age of 16, he was admitted to the Horticulture Department of Zhejiang Agricultural University.
In the 1990s, Yu Jingquan and his team took the lead in solving the problem of melons only blooming but not bearing fruit in China. This plant “baby protection” technology was very popular at that time, and farmers who adopted this technology can increase their benefits by over 3000 yuan per acre of land.
Entering the new century, Yu Jingquan led a team to study and analyze how to help plants overcome adverse conditions such as low temperature and weak light to grow healthily. It cannot be said that it has been completely solved, but it can alleviate and reduce the harm brought by adversity to a certain extent
A few years ago, Yu Jingquan’s team focused mainly on how to solve the problems of continuous cropping obstacles and pesticide residues in the soil. Yu Jingquan said that their approach is to activate the “detoxification genes” of the crop itself, spraying special reagents on the leaves of the crop. Once the detoxification genes in the plant roots are activated, the plant will accelerate the decomposition of excess pesticides. This involves interdisciplinary research methods that need to explore the inherent laws of vegetable growth and development at the molecular level, gene level, protein level, and key regulatory factors.
Yu Jingquan said that he is a scientist whose job is to create original technologies through independent thinking and innovative methods. If we do everything, then we cannot do anything well. It is precisely what others have not done that we need to do
Instead of sitting and waiting, it’s better to crawl forward
In the mid-1990s, Yu Jingquan, who had studied in Japan for many years and had already obtained a doctoral degree, chose to return to his alma mater Zhejiang Agricultural University to teach. At that time, there were still very few overseas students who chose to return to China..In 1995, it was his first year of returning to China to teach. Qualifications and professional titles need to be calculated from scratch, with a monthly salary of only over 400 yuan. During his postdoctoral period, he worked as a researcher at the Basic Research Institute of Takeda Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. in Japan, earning a monthly salary of over 300000 yen (equivalent to over 30000 yuan). When he was in Japan, he had already driven his car, and after returning to China, he pedaled his bicycle again.
However, he remembered his mentor, Mr. Li Shuxuan, who had returned from the United States in the 1950s, who had said to him during his lifetime – “It’s better to climb forward on the ground than to sit on a stool and wait!
This is the spiritual heritage left to us by the older generation, “Yu Jingquan said with deep understanding. People cannot always go where they are good. It’s better to take root and do something down-to-earth.
Find a solution, pain and happiness
As a specially appointed professor of seeking truth at Zhejiang University and a specially appointed professor of Changjiang Scholars at the Ministry of Education, Yu Jingquan’s daily work mainly consists of two parts: one is to cultivate talents and do some scientific research at school; On the other hand, in society, in recent years, Yu Jingquan has conducted research, planning, and technological promotion in vegetable producing areas, covering various parts of the country. Wherever the problem is serious and the people have a strong demand for new technologies, he goes wherever he goes.
In addition to vegetables, such as Panax notoginseng from Yunnan, chrysanthemum from Zhejiang, ginseng from Northeast China, and tea from various regions, Yu Jingquan can reduce pesticide residue degradation and improve food safety through regulation. However, although this type of technology has a low cost, it is not very helpful for increasing production, and it is quite difficult to promote. Yu Jingquan and his team often raise their own funds to do things.
Excellent agricultural technology promotion is difficult, and Yu Jingquan let out a light sigh. Facing existing problems and finding ways to solve them is a painful and joyful process
In his view, agricultural research faces millions of ordinary people, and it is unlikely to make big money from agriculture. Being able to do something for farmers will make him happy in his heart. The country has given us many opportunities and created such good conditions for us, and we should naturally repay society