The year of South China National Botanical Garden
2023-08-03
Yellow berries with important medicinal value, Chinese carefree flowers, camellia, rhododendron black camellia with high ornamental value, rare and endangered plants Michelia cantonensis, narrow leaf hillock... Recently, the South China National Botanical Garden newly unveiled the "Green and Beautiful Guangdong" species exhibition park. The park screened 103 kinds of characteristic plants for the ecological construction of green and beautiful Guangdong from the ecological value, economic value and cultural value of plants, This time, we will focus on showcasing over 20 of them. On the same day, 30 young people from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao planted three "Youth Heart Trees of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao" in the South China National Botanical Garden, which symbolize the kapok, redbud and Manglietia kwangtungensis of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Macao, respectively, implying that the three regions have the same culture, affinity and everlasting kinship. One year since the South China National Botanical Garden was officially inaugurated in July 2022, the scientific research, popular science education, city garden integration and other aspects here are accelerating changes. Hou Xingliang, the current director of the Agricultural and Biotechnology Research Center of the South China National Botanical Garden, was excited and complicated when he paid more attention to the introduction and conservation and learned that the research on the analysis of the genetic basis of insect resistance of sweet potatoes was finally published in the journal Nature Plants in the form of a cover story. Behind this, a team member crouched in the experimental field carefully digging sweet potatoes, feeling tired of marking them one by one; I have been traveling to 15 cities for nearly 8 years, worried about not finding suitable materials; There was also a hope that the team and the South China National Botanical Garden would have greater influence on the world stage when delivering papers... "Sweet potato is one of the strategic crops to ensure the bottom line of food security. However, there is no good plan to solve the problem of diseases and pests that seriously affect the yield and quality of sweet potato in the world at present." Hou Xingliang introduced that the most harmful pest to sweet potato planting is the sweet potato weevil. In order to prevent insects, Planters can only spray pesticides, which will have an impact on the environment and food safety. "Cultivating natural insect resistant varieties is a general trend, but it is a problem that Global studies have not yet solved. The difficulty lies in understanding the insect resistant mechanism of sweet potatoes on the one hand, and in obtaining insect resistant materials on the other hand." Hou Xingliang said that in order to solve the problem, the team decided to find insect resistant materials in the main production areas of sweet potatoes. "We found through experiments that the resistance of sweet potatoes to sweet potato weevil beetles depends on a metabolite called Quinic acid and its derivatives. Quinic acid is not toxic to human body, but eating sweet potatoes containing this substance will affect their intestinal digestion and absorption, so they will not eat this sweet potato," Hou Xingliang said, At present, we are already cultivating new varieties of sweet potatoes, and the platform of the National Botanical Garden will also provide us with more support in talent, exchange, funding, and other aspects. We hope to achieve results soon, driving the healthy development of the sweet potato industry and increasing farmers' production and income "After being upgraded to the National Botanical Garden, the platform has attracted more attention. One of the main tasks of the National Botanical Garden is ex situ protection of plants. Compared with ordinary botanical gardens, the collection of plant species is more abundant, so the introduction and conservation work is heavy and the requirements are higher." Zhan Qingqing, deputy director of the introduction and conservation department of the Gardening Center of South China National Botanical Garden, said that in the past, people thought that the introduction and conservation work was hard and it was not easy to produce scientific research results, Previously, there was a lack of professionals
Edit：He Chuanning Responsible editor：Su Suiyue
Source：People's Daily
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