College students are enthusiastic about growing rice, but the new agricultural science is not as simple as farming.
"Breakfast, a bowl of boiled rice with pickles, full of rice, sweet back." Eating his own hybrid rice, Liu Haolin, a sophomore majoring in agriculture at the Agricultural College of Sichuan Agricultural University, has an indescribable satisfaction.
Recently, the news that sophomores successfully planted hybrid rice appeared in Weibo Hot Search. In late April this year, the Agricultural College of Sichuan Agricultural University held a hybrid rice planting and whole growth period management skill competition. Online registration was full just two minutes after it was opened, and many students failed to sign up. In late September, three hybrid rice plants planted by Liu Haolin’s group successfully passed the teacher’s acceptance. Some people praised and others scoffed at the fact that the sophomore boys planted hybrid rice, thinking that it was just the basic skill of agronomy, and some people thought that studying agriculture was just learning to farm.
Does the popularity of planting competition in agricultural colleges mean that planting is a necessary skill for agronomy majors? What is special about the hybrid rice planted in the competition? Under the background of new agricultural science, what changes have taken place in agricultural professional education in colleges and universities? A few days ago, the reporter of Science and Technology Daily conducted relevant interviews.
Cutting-edge technology into agricultural competition
In the eyes of many people, the major of agronomy is to learn farming, and you can learn how to do species work at home without even going to college, so that the farmland can be productive. However, in Liu Haolin’s view, studying agronomy is to contribute to the national agricultural development. "Agronomy taught me how to greatly increase production, how to scientifically farm, how to cultivate new varieties, etc., which is absolutely different from farming at home."
"This is the public’s misunderstanding of agronomy, which is a modern science that uses science and technology to arm crop production." Ren Wanjun, deputy dean of the Agricultural College of Sichuan Agricultural University, said that planting is one of the most basic skills in agronomy, but in addition to its production function, planting is more important to lay the foundation for theoretical research on crop biology and ecology, new variety breeding, cultivation technology innovation and management model innovation.
During the competition, in order to let students feel the cutting-edge technology in the field of planting, the college applied the latest achievements of the national key research and development plan to all aspects of the competition.
In terms of varieties, combined with the adaptability of mechanical transplanting of hybrid indica rice and the demand for high quality and high efficiency, the competition adopted the newly established variety screening index system with "daily yield" and "good taste" as the core; In the two links of seedling raising and planting intubation protection, the high-efficiency seedling raising technology and the green cultivation technology of high-quality hybrid rice with good quality and high quality are adopted respectively.
The college will organize special personnel to carry out training on the technical application of each link. "The purpose of the training is to enable students to personally experience and master these advanced technologies and help them better cultivate rice." Ren Wanjun said.
In August, pests first appeared, and Liu Haolin, who wanted to kill insects quickly, accidentally took too many drugs and burned seedlings. As a result, there was no progress when it was time to heading. Liu Haolin, who was thinking about how to feed rice while eating and sleeping, suddenly thought of what the teacher had said in class, so he solved this problem. He said: "Agriculture needs to combine theory with practice. Although there will be setbacks during the competition, the key is to find problems and master methods through practice."
"The whole competition is equivalent to laboratory planting, and every link can be managed accurately. Because there are fewer seedlings planted in the laboratory, the lighting conditions and soil conditions are not well planted in the field, so its management is more difficult than field planting, but it also exercises and tests students more. " Ren Wanjun said that for scientific research and teaching, laboratory planting is of great value, because each link is controllable, so we can know more clearly the reasons for some phenomena in each link and determine the effect of each technical measure.
He said that any agricultural research results need to be combined with laboratory and field, and repeated experiments. After the results are planted in the laboratory, they need to be tested by field experiments before they can be popularized, which takes a long period.
Cross-discipline to create comprehensive talents
The fiery competition is actually a microcosm of the construction of new agricultural science. In June this year, the Anji Consensus — — The announcement of China Declaration on the Construction of New Agricultural Sciences marks the official start of the construction of new agricultural sciences in China, and the development of higher agricultural and forestry education has entered a new era. Since the announcement of the new agricultural science, what changes have been made in the education of agricultural specialty in colleges and universities?
"The focus of the new agricultural science is to transform the traditional agronomy specialty with modern biotechnology, engineering technology, information science and technology, so we should focus on combining these technologies with modern agronomy and integrating them into the teaching, scientific research and practice of personnel training." Ren Wanjun said that to take the road of innovation and subject integration, we should not only integrate the latest scientific research achievements and modern high-tech into specialty construction and course teaching, but also deepen the interdisciplinary, strengthen the construction of emerging interdisciplinary fields such as mechanized crop cultivation, precision cultivation, intelligent agriculture and biological breeding, put forward new theories and methods, realize the modernization of agronomy, and let universities lead the development of new agronomy.
The reporter saw that in the training plan of the college, there are not only basic and professional theoretical courses such as plant physiology, soil and fertilizer science, crop cultivation science, farming science and crop breeding science, but also general courses such as English, ideological and political science, mathematics, chemistry and biology, as well as ideological and political courses for agricultural students to "learn from agriculture and love agriculture" and "strengthen agriculture and promote agriculture". At the same time, interdisciplinary courses such as intelligent agricultural technology and application, agricultural economy and management, plant biotechnology, molecular biology, agricultural industrialization, agricultural standardization and crop production mechanization have also been included in the training plan. Ren Wanjun said that agricultural production should take the modernization road of mechanization, standardization and informationization. As a high-tech discipline, agronomy is a complex comprehensive specialty, so the cultivation of agricultural talents should also be a systematic comprehensive project.
Innovation and entrepreneurship take on the responsibility of revitalization
"The most distinctive feature of the new agricultural science in our college is to cultivate students ‘ Willing, capable, hardworking and practical ’ ‘ Sigan ’ Traits. " Ren Wanjun said that agronomy itself has high practical requirements. Under the background of new agricultural science, the mastery and application of technology need to further deepen the practical requirements of agronomy. Therefore, it is particularly important to cultivate students’ practical ability and innovative consciousness.
"In the process of practical teaching, the most important thing is to cultivate students’ innovative and entrepreneurial ability. In addition to learning the basic operation of planting, students should learn how to solve problems, including theoretical problems, technical problems, production problems, management problems, benefit problems, etc., and constantly optimize their thinking and methods for solving problems. " Ren Wanjun said that agricultural science and technology are constantly developing, and students need to have the ability to innovate, not only to absorb and master new things, but also to continuously develop and create new theories and technologies.
In order to closely combine practical teaching with the cultivation of innovation and entrepreneurship, the college has established a training path of undergraduate talents with "indoor and field combination, scientific research transformation teaching, classroom cooperation, innovation and entrepreneurship education". In addition to setting up various skills competitions such as hybrid rice planting and whole growth period management, seed quality testing, specimen making, etc. in the school, the college also allows every undergraduate to "join the team, each with a project", so that every student can enter the teacher’s research team, participate in scientific research projects, and cultivate innovation and entrepreneurship ability in scientific research practice.
In addition, the college has more than 30 off-campus practice bases and expert compound, which can carry out teaching and scientific research practice for students to complete course practice and graduation practice, and serve local economic development while being familiar with actual agricultural production and work. Ren Wanjun said that the College closely combines talent training with the abundant crop resources and diversified production structure in Southwest China, meets the new requirements of the integration and development of rural primary, secondary and tertiary industries in Southwest China through co-construction and co-education in Industry-University-Research, implements the combination of agriculture, education and Industry-University-Research cooperation, and strives to improve students’ comprehensive ability, cultivate a group of high-quality compound agronomists with multi-disciplinary backgrounds, cultivate more new talents who know and love agriculture, and shoulder the responsibility of rural revitalization.