Potato seeds, which were once returned to Earth by the Shenzhou 14 spacecraft, have recently ushered in their first harvest season in Dezhou, Shandong Province, after nearly half a year of cultivation and planting by scientific researchers. On December 4th last year, 20,000 potato seeds took the Shenzhou 14 spacecraft, completed a 182-day "space journey," returned to Earth, and were handed over to the National Potato Engineering Technology Research Center in Lao Ling , Dezhou for research. The 10,000 potato plants in the greenhouse are the witness of the first potato "space breeding" in Shandong Province.
According to Kong Haiming, general manager of the Xujia base of LaoLing Xisen Potato Industry Group: "We planted in the first year, and these plants have grown for about 90 days, and most of them are ready to be harvested.
Breeding takes very long. We hope that in the future, the product yield and starch content will be higher and higher, and the salt and alkali resistance and disease resistance will become stronger and stronger, but it will take time to practice slowly. It is reported that the batch of "space potatoes" harvested today are miniature potatoes, which are professionally called C0-generation seed potatoes. In the future, C1, C2, C3, C4... will be planted in cubes every year in the third year. After further screening, it may take another 6 to 10 years before it can be served on consumers' tables.
Xisen Potato Industry Group, located in Huangjia Town, Lao Ling City, Dezhou, Shandong Province, is currently able to produce 800 million miniature potato seeds per year, and the virus-free seed potatoes produced can meet the needs of 2 million hectares of planting area. In the Lao Ling base, there are sterile seed potato detoxification, tissue culture workshops, an underground artificial intelligence climate room, a 30,000-square-meter super-large constant temperature warehouse, and 230 soilless cultivation aphid-proof greenhouses. In 2011, after research, Xisen Group launched the first new variety of independent intellectual property rights, "Xisen No. 3" Later, new potato varieties such as "Xisen No. 4", "Xisen No. 5" and "Xisen No. 6" came out one after another. The group has successfully cultivated 18 new varieties with completely independent intellectual property rights, among which 11 new varieties, such as "Xisen No. 3" and "Xisen No. 6," have passed the variety approval and national registration. Also, the quality and output far exceed the imported varieties.
"We are also actively cooperating with overseas universities and enterprises, and the virus-free potato seedlings have also been exported to Kazakhstan and other countries. The promotion of Xisen 6 in Kazakhstan has been very successful. In 2020, the "Kazakhstan Potato Variety Breeding and High-yield Technology Demonstration Aid Project" approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology was implemented, further consolidating the basis for cooperation between the two parties. The pandemic has hindered many projects for three years, and as the market reopens, we will usher in many new developments," said Kong during the conversation.
Li Huaming