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Hubei Hongshan Laboratory launched a major project on the technologies & benefits research and industrialization of “rice-duck-crayfish” planting & breeding system under the principle of “three Nos & one precision” on November 25. HZAU would work with a number of units to integrate the rice-crayfish farming and rice-duck farming to build the “rice-duck-crayfish” co-culture system.
Approved by the Hubei Provincial Government and led by HZAU, the Hongshan Laboratory focuses on the field of biological breeding. Zhang Qifa, director of Hongshan Laboratory and member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said the overall goal of Hongshan Laboratory was to supply healthy food for people and the planet and this project was launched to upgrade the “Shuangshui Shuanglü” planting and breeding mode.
“Shuangshui Shuanglü” was proposed by Zhang and other experts in 2017, which means to make full use of the strengths of rice fields and water resources to implement a coordinated eco-friendly rice and aquaculture farming. By doing so, it would develop “Shuangshui” industry (rice and aquaculture) and optimize the “Shuanglü” products (eco-friendly rice and crayfish, or named as green rice and green crayfish).
The project initiated by Hongshan Laboratory would focus on building a rice-duck-crayfish planting & breeding system. It will center on the culture of “Huamoxiang” (a black rice variety), and the research will be carried out on the key technologies of rice-crayfish and rice-duck coculture and the construction of a technical system of “three Nos & one precision” (no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers, no fish medicine and precision feeding). This project would create a new agricultural production mode, redefine agricultural output, and explore the nutrition & health value of black rice to promote it to be a staple food.
Prof. Gu Zemao, chief expert of the project and director of Shuangshui Shuanglü Institute of HZAU, introduced that the “rice-crayfish” based “Shuangshui Shuanglü” farming has good economic, social and ecological benefits; ducks raised in the paddy field can feed on weeds, pests, and crayfishes left in fields. Besides, duck manure can fertilize the fields. The project would take the advantages of rice-crayfish farming and rice-duck farming to explore the sustainable development system of rice-duck-crayfish panting and breeding. The system is hoped to tackle the current problems like weeds removal and crayfish remains, and be mutual beneficial and eco-friendly.
The project team also aimed to achieve an output value of 25000 yuan per mu (mu=0.0667 hectares) and turn the paddy field into a “treasure basin”.
Many related units joined the project, including universities and research institutes like WU, HZAU, Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Enshi Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Wuhan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and others, and agricultural business entities from Jianli City and Shishou City.
Zhang said Hongshan Laboratory invited researchers at all levels to participate in, form a joint force to “work together to do great things”. The laboratory should focus not only on scientific issues, but also on industrial issues and the whole industry chain, and further on variety resources, basic biological research, green variety breeding, green production system and nutrition & health.
Source: http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2021/1206/62158.shtml
Translated by Xu Yuanxin
Supervised by Wang Xiaoyan
