A "golden seed" creates a "bountiful" scene for beer and wheat!

"The yield per mu is 767.5 kg! This is a new record for beer barley yield in our province!" Wang Longjun, deputy director of the Jiangsu Provincial Agricultural Technology Extension Station, excitedly announced the yield test results at the high-yield research field of "Yangnong Beer 14" at Huaihai Farm in Sheyang County, Yancheng City. Upon hearing this good news, Xu Rugen, the variety breeder and professor of the College of Agriculture of Yangzhou University, finally showed a gratified smile on his face.

"Yangnong Beer 14" not only has a considerable yield, but also performs well in quality tests, with excellent resistance and high quality, and can be called the "top student" in the seed industry. Zhou Aigen, a large grower who observed the on-site production, said excitedly, "With such 'golden seeds', we are more motivated to grow grain."

How can a "golden seed" be cultivated? Xu Rugen's team has given the answer with decades of persistence.

"We have been carrying out hybrid breeding of fine varieties for many years, and have adopted standardized planting techniques such as precision seeding, accurate fertilization, and precise chemical control for field management throughout the process, so as to ensure the coordinated improvement of yield and quality and meet the high standards of malt and beer processing." Xu Rugen said that from the initial product selection to the subsequent iterative cultivation, multi-point testing, indoor analysis, and then to industrial demonstration, the team has gone through more than 10 years of "sifting the sand" and "intensive cultivation" and finally achieved success.

As the main raw material of beer malt, barley is in great demand in my country. However, most of the beer barley raw materials currently used in my country rely on imports. How to solve this dilemma has always been the focus of research by many scientific researchers.

In recent years, Xu Rugen's team has persisted in deepening the innovation of barley germplasm resources and the selection and breeding of new varieties. They have successively cultivated more than 10 high-quality and high-yield beer barley varieties, including "Yangnong Beer No. 7", "Yangnong Beer No. 8" and "Yangnong Beer No. 12". They have now been planted on a large scale in the coastal areas of Yancheng, and all have shown excellent traits such as high yield and high quality.

Only when the results are truly "implemented" can the industry be revitalized. Guo Ganggang, chief expert of the national barley and highland barley industry technology system, introduced that since the establishment of the national barley and highland barley industry system in 2008, independent breeding has basically been able to completely replace imports, but the "bottleneck" is that good varieties have not been transformed into high-quality beer raw materials.

In response to the "bottleneck" problems in the industry, Xu Rugen took the initiative to "take charge" and collaborated with a number of domestic beer and barley-related companies and scientific research institutions to move scientific and technological achievements from the "laboratory" to the "production line", effectively promoting the deep integration of the innovation chain, industrial chain, and talent chain.

"We have always used projects as a link, adopted the 'order-based' industry-university-research cooperation model, accurately matched the needs of enterprises, adopted modern breeding technology, accelerated the selection of high-quality and high-yield new varieties, and increased the demonstration planting area with the help of the full-chain production and sales model, connecting the entire chain from the R&D end to the demand end, and promoting the high-quality development of the barley industry." Xu Rugen introduced that the multiple Yangnong Beer series varieties selected and bred by the team have become the "darlings" of major companies. Among them, "Yangnong Beer No. 7" has become the main beer barley variety promoted by Jiangsu Province, and is also the designated special variety for the production of beer barley raw materials by world-renowned beer companies in Jiangsu.

"In recent years, Jiangsu Agricultural Reclamation Malt Co., Ltd. and Yangzhou University have established an industry-university-research cooperation relationship in the selection and breeding of beer barley varieties, and have made significant breakthroughs in expanding production capacity and increasing market share. In the future, we are confident that more 'Made-in-China' malt products will go abroad and into the world." said Fan Chao, the company's deputy general manager.

"In the future, the team will persist in scientific research and innovation, deepen the 'responsibility field' of selecting and breeding high-quality and high-yield beer barley varieties, expand the 'circle of friends' of industry-university-research cooperation, establish a beer barley production and quality promotion alliance, and promote the revitalization of domestic beer barley to a new stage." Xu Rugen said.