A seminar “Integrating farming with animal husbandry, ameliorating saline-alkali lands, and fertilizing soils” was held by HZAU and Jilin Academy of Chinese Engineering Science and Technology for Development in Jilin Province on October 9 and 10. Members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, including Deng Xiuxin, Fu Tingdong, Li Yu and Li Peiwu, the inspector form Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Chen Zhangquan, and some other experts attended the seminar.
In China, the saline-alkali soils are mainly distributed in areas which are underdeveloped in agriculture, such as arid and semi-arid regions and agro-pastoral interlaced regions, where poor rainfall and strong evaporation lead to severe soil salinization, reducing agricultural productivity.
The agricultural public welfare project “Soil fertilization and farming arrangement in the northern one-harvest region”, presided by Academician Fu Tingdong, has made great progress. The project uses saline-alkali tolerant rape as fodder and green manure to develop a technological system for amelioration and utilization of saline-alkali land.
At the seminar, Fu Tingdong said saline-alkali tolerant rape was the most suitable field crop for ameliorating and utilizing saline-alkali soils. Growing rapes (used as fodder and fertilizer) on the autumn fallow in the North had great potential, which could bring economic, social and ecological benefits. To achieve the goal of raising 10 million beef cattle, it was an effective way for Jilin Province to solve the problem of green fodder supply by making use of the saline-alkali land and the autumn fallow to plant the rape.
At the rape field and the silage site in Xinhu Town of Changchun, Shen Li, general manager of Xinmu Technology Company, introduced their cooperation with Fu Tingdong’s research team. They carried out the experiment of planting the forage rape two times in a year and feeding bulls by it, and witnessed an obvious increase in semen production and quality.
“Never underestimate the role of rape as it is beneficial at any growing stage. It can be cooked into a dish at the early growing stage; when it grows older, it can be used for fodder; and when it is ripe, the seeds can be collected.” Deng Xiuxin, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said the problems of land salinization in the North, degradation of black earth in the Northeast and acidification of land in the South affected the quality of China’s 1.8 billion mu(a unit of area, 1 mu is equal to 0.0667 hectares) arable land, and rape was precisely a biological solution to land salinization. Since it could solve the problem with relatively low investment, Deng suggested that the more research on soil microorganisms in ameliorated saline-alkali land can be done to enhance the theoretical depth of research.
After the seminar, the academicians and experts attended the opening ceremony of “Jilin Province Comprehensive Utilization Demonstration Base of Forage Rape” of National Engineering Research Center of Rapeseed, and the co-founded “Saline-alkali Land Bioremediation Management Cooperative Research Center”.
Yao Jianglin, Vice President of Huazhong Agricultural University, said HZAU would be open to the suggestions and opinions of scholars and entrepreneurs, promote the research and development of saline-alkali tolerant rape, and contribute to the strategic goal of “raising 10 million head of cattle, protecting the black land and promoting rural revitalization” proposed by Jilin Province.
Source: http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2021/1013/61594.shtml
Translated by: Deng Qingqing
Supervised by: Wang Xiaoyan
