The axillary bud of ratooning rice sprouts [Video snapshot]
On the evening of October 14th, CCTV-17 broadcast Rebirth of Rice in its program I Love Invention, which introduced an “intense combat” between the double-channel harvester for ratoon rice, developed by Professor Zhang Guozhong’s team from College of Engineering of HZAU, and the common rice harvester in Xiaonan demonstration area, Xiaogan City.
Ratooning rice deserves a vigorous recommendation in that it’s a distinctive industry which can increase supply of high-quality grain, farmers’ income and guarantee food security. If there is to enhance peasants’ morale in ratooning rice production and improve planting benefit, there must be mechanized harvesting technology and equipment with less rolling rate so that the bottleneck of high rolling loss in first-season harvest of ratooning rice can be broken through. In 2013, Professor Zhang Guozhong’s team kicked off the R&D of the technology and equipment for harvesting the ratooning rice, and successively put forward several technical solutions. Through ten years’ efforts, they ultimately developed the double-channel ratooning rice harvester. In the program, Professor Zhang used a metaphor to describe the field operation of the ratooning rice harvester: The harvester, standing on its nimble feet, carries a big load of rice but can walk fast and steadily across the muddy paddy field. Talking about the R&D of the harvester, he felt strongly about how the process was fraught with tremendous pressure and problems which, in turn, serve as an impelling power to motivate more hard work. Every survival from setbacks will bring forth a leap, just like the rice sprouting and rising again.
The program finally concluded that the tracked rolling rate and the direct rolling loss of the double-channel harvester were 18% and 30% lower than that of the common harvester respectively. Taking the 10,000 mu of local ratooning rice planting areas as an example, it is equivalent to increasing the area of ratooning season from 5200 mu to 7900 mu, significantly improving the planting returns, and laying a foundation for ensuring comprehensive promotion and increase in ratooning rice yields and farmers’ income. Yi Qisheng, senior agronomist of Xiaonan District Agro-Technology Extension Service Center, said, “Double-channel harvester endows us with more confidence in promoting the planting mode of ratooning rice”.
The harvester was involved in the 2022 comprehensive evaluation of mechanical operation effect in ratooning rice harvest, an activity held by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People’s Republic of China (MARA) in Miluo, Hunan during July 26-30, 2022. Results showed that it’s a better player in both loss reduction and yield increase.
Source: http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2022/1017/64772.shtml
Translated by: Su Tong
Supervised by: Xie Lujie
