Watering youth in the field may not produce a perfect seed. If you can't choose one in a hundred, choose one in a thousand or ten thousand. Sun Deling, who is engaged in Cauliflower breeding, firmly believes that "Chinese core" can always be bred by sticking to one seed and accompanying one crop of cauliflower through spring, autumn, winter and summer. In 30 years, he and his team finally turned this "fine dish", which used to entertain guests in Western restaurants, into a cheap and delicious Bulk vegetable on the Chinese table. Defeat foreign varieties and turn cauliflower into "wealth flower" As a municipality directly under the central government, although the agricultural planting area is small, the development of seed industry ranks first in the country. Cauliflower seeds cultivated by the team led by sun Deling, vice president of Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, post expert of national Bulk vegetable industry technology system and Tianjin cauliflower breeding award expert, are one of them. Cauliflower, also known as cauliflower, is called cauliflower in Chinese. It originated in the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and was introduced into China in the 19th century. Until the 1970s and 1980s, cauliflower varieties were still imported. Foreign companies could sell 1 gram of cauliflower seeds for about 0.5 yuan in the Chinese market. "China's native cauliflower planting area is very small, with messy varieties and serious degradation. Farmers can only rely on foreign seeds if they want to grow, but the channels are monopolized by foreign companies, and the price is expensive." Sun Deling said that at that time, 90% of the hybrid seeds were imported, and they needed to spend more than US $2 million in foreign exchange every year. In order to change this situation, breed varieties with independent intellectual property rights and let the Chinese eat their own cauliflower, the older generation of breeding experts in Tianjin began to try to breed cauliflower hybrid seeds belonging to China. Wei nairong, sun Deling's teacher, established a cauliflower research team in the 1970s to widely collect cauliflower resources throughout the country. Through unremitting efforts, the research team selected and bred the first domestic cauliflower hybrid variety "Baifeng" in the early 1990s. "Baifeng" became popular in the market as soon as it was launched. At that time, there was a saying that "Whoever can buy 'Baifeng' can make money." at the gate of Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the team buying seeds lined up for dozens of meters. At that time, sun Deling joined Wei nairong's breeding team. However, the blow came too quickly. Wei nairong died of illness. He didn't even have time to explain the breeding materials and scientific research. Therefore, in the next few years, sun Deling led the breeding team to re register the characteristics of each cauliflower resource and establish a resource file At that time, the cauliflower variety "Xueshan" from Japan once occupied 85% of China's market. Anxious sun Deling is determined to cultivate cauliflower varieties that surpass Japan's "Snow Mountain". At that time, it took nearly two hours to get from Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences to the breeding base. At dawn, sun Deling had appeared in the field and recorded the growth of cauliflower one by one with paper and pen. Jiang Hanmin, an associate researcher of the cauliflower Research Office of the Vegetable Research Institute of Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, recalled that the humidity in the base was relatively high. In the morning, there was dew on the cauliflower leaves and waded in the field. The dew had already soaked through the trouser legs and spread above the knee. When the cold autumn wind blew, others trembled, but Sun Deling seemed completely unaware. Everything comes to him who waits. In 1998, sun Deling's team bred a variety of "Jinxue 88" whose appearance, yield, adaptability and stress resistance exceeded Japan's "Snow Mountain". After that, the team developed "Xia Xue", "Feng Hua" and "Jin Pin" series. Among the 26 cauliflower varieties with independent intellectual property rights, 8 have obtained the right of new plant varieties, becoming the first batch of cauliflower varieties listed in the International Convention for the protection of new plant varieties in China. These varieties with independent intellectual property rights have been promoted to more than 20 provinces across the country, with a cumulative promotion area of more than 8.5 million mu and a new economic benefit of 5.95 billion yuan. Cauliflower has boosted farmers' pockets, enriched people's vegetable baskets, and changed the fate of a village. The breeding of improved cauliflower varieties requires excellent isolation conditions. Generally speaking, it is to separate from other cauliflower varieties as far as possible to avoid impure varieties caused by bee pollination. To this end, sun Deling's team spent two years visiting many provinces and cities across the country, and finally selected a Yi village in Yuanmou County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province, as a cauliflower breeding base in 2002. "The traffic there is extremely inconvenient. It takes five hours to climb the mountain road to reach the town, but it has created an excellent place for cauliflower breeding," Sun Deling said. Sun Deling ate and lived with local farmers and taught them the technology of cauliflower propagation. The cauliflower planted in the first year brought an income of 300000 yuan to the village. You know, the village had an annual per capita income of less than 1000 yuan. There was no tile roofed house or motor vehicle in the village. Because of poverty, it is still a famous "Bachelor village" far and near. Some villagers bought their first mobile phone after making money, and the whole village felt very fresh. By 2005, four of the 20 "top rich" in the county came from the village, "single village" gradually became "top village", and cauliflower was also called "wealth flower" by local people. "Cauliflower doesn't 'rest', we don't rest" Walking into the cauliflower breeding base in Wuqing District, Tianjin, a border of cauliflower reveals a round and full "head" in the huge leaves. The "row head" of each cauliflower is inserted with a wooden pole, which is bound with a label with numbers and letters. This is the unique "ID card" of each cauliflower variety. Wearing a straw hat and plain clothes, sun Deling is bending down to check the different "appearance" of cauliflower bulbs and the width of leaves. In his eyes, each cauliflower is like a person with different personality, each with its own characteristics. With dark skin, simple clothes and years of shoes, there is still a lot of soil on them. At first glance, you must think that a farmer came out of the field. "Under the 'baptism' of soil, sweat, heat, cold and mosquitoes, it's no use wearing more clothes," Sun Deling said. Sun Deling has never left a link in his work year after year, from collecting seeds, rubbing seeds and finishing seeds, to cross pollination and cultivating seedlings in the greenhouse, and then to planting seedlings, watering and digging drainage ditches after transplanting outdoors. The researchers of the team said that President sun had become "infatuated" with cauliflower. "You can't get out of the breeder in '8 hours'. Only by watching cauliflower in the field during the day and thinking about cauliflower at night can you highlight the breeding inspiration." Sun Deling often talks about this sentence. Racing against time is the unanimous choice of sun Deling's team. "Cauliflower doesn't 'rest', we don't rest. Field experiments are seasonal. We should stick to them regardless of wind and rain, heat and cold. All our time arrangements should be determined according to the growth of cauliflower." Sun Deling said that for example, the pollination period is short. If we miss this window period, all the hard work of the team in this year will be wasted. In order to obtain detailed scientific research data, sun Deling and his team members often enter the greenhouse in the morning and don't come out until nightfall. When they are hungry, they pick up a few mouthfuls of rice. "In summer, the temperature in the plastic greenhouse is as high as more than 40 degrees Celsius. It is stuffy and hot. Our clothes are soaked with sweat, wrung and then dried. In order to timely count and sort out the survey data during the day, we have to work overtime at night." As long as there was a gap in his work in the office building, sun Deling had to run to the ground and have a look. He often had no time to change his work clothes and went back to the meeting with mud. "Only when I stay in the field and see these cauliflower can I feel at ease," Sun Deling said. "Breeding doesn't have a weekend. I have work to do every day. I even prefer to choose seeds in the field on Saturday and Sunday. No one can disturb me. I can do more work." soaking in the field for breeding can most relax sun Deling. On average, more than 3000 cauliflower hybrid combinations are planted every year, and at least 20 plants are planted in each hybrid combination. Each plant must make detailed experimental records and need to be compared and tested in the laboratory... Sun Deling insisted that to select excellent cauliflower varieties, one in a hundred is not enough, and one in a thousand or ten thousand must be selected. Yao Xingwei, a 44 year old researcher at the Vegetable Research Institute of Tianjin Academy of Agricultural Sciences, joined sun Deling's team after graduating from the vegetable major of Inner Mongolia Agricultural University. "When I first came here, there was a big gap. I came to work wearing high heels on the first day. Before I reached the door of the office building, President sun called me to the breeding base. One day, my shoes were full of mud. Later, I seldom wore high heels," Yao Xingwei said. In order to understand the growth of the selected "preparatory varieties" in bases all over the country, it is common to travel, and the base is often located in remote suburbs or mountainous areas. "I've been to Shanghai many times, but I've never been to the city center. Every time, in order not to miss the growth cycle of cauliflower, I turn around various means of transportation and plunge into the base. I rarely have a chance to feel the gorgeous charm of the city," Yao Xingwei said. Choosing agricultural scientific research means choosing hardship. A good breeder should endure loneliness and hardship. Sun Deling often tells team members that to cultivate good seeds, we must first make a "good seed". "Fall in the field, there are cauliflower pads" Cauliflower breeding process is not smooth sailing. Once, the freezer that kept the seeds selected by sun Deling and his team for more than ten years suddenly lost power. After sun Deling knew it was more than half a month. "After opening the freezer, the seeds were moldy. Suddenly, I felt my eyes were black. More than ten years of hard work was in vain!" Sun Deling said. "With this incident, we have specialists to check the freezer every day to avoid accidents." To bring a cauliflower seed to the market, it takes time to harden. Yao Xingwei broke his fingers and calculated for the reporter: the good seeds selected by thousands must first undergo three years of "tempering" in the experimental field, and the seed dealers have to plant them in the field for another three years. Only when all "indicators" perform well can they be popularized and applied and really planted in the farmers' land. "Selecting the best from the best, and promoting and applying good varieties in a large area has condensed the efforts of many people." It is very difficult to cultivate a good variety of cauliflower that can enjoy a good reputation in the market. "It's normal for a variety to perform well last year and not this year," Yao Xingwei said. "Our mood changes with the variety. When we are very tired after a day in the field, we suddenly see a good variety and the whole mood changes." Sun Deling said: "breeding is the art of defects. There will never be the most perfect variety. What we can do is try our best to do every link well without missing a good variety." Breeding should keep pace with the times, and there is no "ever victorious general". After 2007, organic cauliflower introduced from Taiwan has gradually become a new favorite on people's table. Organic cauliflower, commonly known as pine cauliflower, has good taste, rich nutrition and great market potential. "In the past, cauliflower was' tight for beauty '. When farmers saw that the cauliflower ball was loose, they would ask us to lose money. But the consumption habits changed, and the delicious pine cauliflower became popular," Sun Deling said. What sun Deling didn't expect was that the pine and cauliflower seeds, which were expensive and occupied less than 5% of the market at the beginning, rapidly "expanded" in a short time. In just a few years, almost all the tight cauliflower varieties bred by the team were eliminated. Sun Deling began to adjust Breeding Ideas in time. In 2015, high quality, multi resistance and adaptability