"Haha, as long as you like it. The conditions here are quite difficult, so if you have any difficulties, just ask us and we will try our best to solve them if we can." Wu Hao said with a smile.
Hearing Wu Hao's words, Zheng Kaixiang on the side also said: "Xiao Yang, this opportunity is rare. If you have any difficulties, please tell me immediately. Otherwise, if Mr. Wu leaves, you won't have such a good opportunity."
Hahahaha... everyone laughed when they heard Zheng Kaixiang's words
Yang Fang also smiled and said: "Thank you, Mr. Wu, I really have a problem and want to trouble you."
"Tell me, can I listen?" Wu Hao said with a smile.
Yang Fang smiled and said: "That's right, we need a large experimental site. It is best that this experimental site can be used to plant some experimental plants around here."
Wu Hao nodded when he heard this and asked: "How big do you want it to be?"
"Let's get a hundred acres first!" Yang Fang said with a smile.
Wu Hao laughed when he heard this and said: "Yes, that's not a bad tone. Okay, I'll help solve it."
"Thank you, Mr. Wu." Yang Fang said excitedly with a smile.
Wu Hao smiled and shook his head and said: "Now can you introduce to me the project you are studying? I didn't listen to anything, so I lost a hundred acres of land."
Haha, after a chuckle, Yang Fang smiled at them and introduced: "Our project is mainly engaged in research on the cultivation of drought-tolerant plants. We mainly hope to cultivate some plants suitable for growing in desert arid areas through transgenic and gene editing techniques.
Plants, such as herbs, woody plants, vines, etc.
The desertification area in our country is approximately three million square kilometers, accounting for nearly 40% of the total land area. The situation is very serious.
These desertification areas are mainly concentrated in the northwest and northern regions, with the northwest occupying the largest area. Basically, more than 80% of the entire northwest region is such a desert area.
You have all learned about the dangers of desertification in junior high school geography, so I won’t go into details. I will just say that it is the source of poverty in the northwest and the biggest environmental problem facing our country.
Including the sandstorms that sweep across the entire north every spring, and the haze that engulfs most of the country every winter, are actually related to this.
So if we can solve the desertification problem, we can solve many problems at once, from poverty alleviation and people's livelihood, to the natural environment, social problems, to animal and plant protection, biodiversity, etc."
"Although our country has made world-renowned achievements in desertification control, the situation is still grim.
We collected and analyzed the sand and dust weather, temperature, and precipitation in the entire northwest region over the years, and found that the rainfall line from the east is actually moving backward, and the rainfall in some areas continued to decrease, and sand and dust weather increased significantly.
Moreover, there have been much more high-temperature and drought weather recorded in recent years than before, which shows that the drought climate in the entire northwest region is still intensifying.
Of course, this may be related to the global semi-warm environment, but it is also inseparable from the excessive use of natural resources by humans. In particular, agricultural reclamation and animal husbandry use a large amount of water resources, leading to the disappearance of many oases and worsening
The arid climate of this area.
In such a general environment, although we have succeeded in local desertification control, we are still unable to reverse the desertification situation in the northwest.
If we rely solely on this traditional desertification control, even if it is effective, it will take a slow process, one hundred, two hundred years, or even longer.
So we are wondering whether we can use current biotechnology to accelerate the process of desertification control.
For example, we can cultivate drought-tolerant plants that are more drought-resistant and have a higher survival rate, or we can cultivate fast-growing plants that grow quickly to fix sand.
Take moso bamboo, for example, which is the fastest growing plant in the world and is also a native plant in our country. It can grow from the tips of small bamboo shoots that have not yet broken ground to a twenty-meter-tall new bamboo within two months. This is absolutely
It's an incredible growth rate.
Secondly, the root system of moso bamboo is very developed, and the root system is thick and powerful, and can absorb water and nutrients tens of meters deep into the ground.
And because of its well-developed root system, it reproduces very quickly. A single moso bamboo can breed a bamboo forest in a few years.
Finally, there is the economic value. For example, bamboo shoots can be used for food, and bamboo is very environmentally friendly and is widely used in various fields, such as construction, papermaking, bamboo products, etc."
"But bamboo comes from the south, and it likes moist and fertile land. How can it survive in this barren desert?" Zou Xiaodong didn't believe it.
"Haha, this is what we are going to do now." Yang Fang said with a smile: "Currently, we have two main directions for the transplantation and cultivation of moso bamboo in desertification.
The first direction is to use moso bamboo as the main body, and then insert some genetic parts of desert drought-tolerant plants into it, and then transplant the moso bamboo directly to the desert for planting, and finally cultivate moso bamboo varieties suitable for desert growth.
Second, extract the fast-growing genes from moso bamboo and put them into some drought-tolerant plants, so that these drought-tolerant plants can grow at the same speed as moso bamboo."
After hearing Yang Fang's introduction, Zou Xiaodong and Shen Ning felt that it was a bit fanciful and impossible.
Wu Hao was a little better. He nodded and asked with a smile: "Good idea, now let's get to that part."
"We have just taken the first step, and it is still early to succeed. You know, biological science is relatively slow. Even if we have greenhouses that can control the temperature at will, the growth of plants requires a process, so it will take a long time.
It takes time to see the effect." Yang Fang explained to Wu Hao.
Wu Hao smiled and shook his head when he heard this: "There is no rush in this regard. If we follow your pace, I believe this project will definitely achieve great results."
After receiving Wu Hao's affirmation, Yang Fang also became happy, then smiled at Wu Hao and introduced: "Actually, there are many other ideas like this.
For example, our other major experimental target is corn. Corn itself is a drought-tolerant crop, and its growth rate is also very fast. The plant is relatively tall and the root system is relatively developed. It is widely planted in the northwest region.
Now our domestic consumption of corn is not limited to corn grain itself, but more derived products from corn.
For example, we are now the world's largest consumer of corn and soybeans, and our corn consumers are mainly in farming.
By raising some livestock and poultry, we can exchange for the meat products and eggs that our people like most.
In addition to corn grain, corn straw is also a very good feed. Many areas have even begun to turn to growing corn as silage feed.
We now want to breed drought-tolerant corn that can grow in this desert, so as to control the desert and obtain higher economic output value."