Desert sprouts rice
Saline-alkali tolerant strain to bolster food security in Xinjiang
Our ultimate goal is to improve the condition of the soil so we can grow other kinds of produce ...” Zhang Lishan, rice expert at the Qingdao Saline-Alkali Tolerant Rice Research and Development Center, Shandong province
Last year, the locals were shocked when Zhang Lishan and his colleagues harvested rice from an experimental paddy on the edge of the Taklimakan Desert in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
“Officials came to the field to see it with their own eyes, to touch the spikes of rice and believe that the crop can actually grow in soil with such high levels of salinity and alkalinity,” Zhang said with a laugh, as he stood in the field in Bayiawat township, Kashgar prefecture, on the edge of the world’s second-largest shifting sand desert.
“Also, it was the first time that many of the Uygur villagers had seen how rice, which they use to cook pilaf (a traditional dish of the ethnic group), actually grows.”
About 134,000 hectares of farmland in Xinjiang have high levels of salinity and alkalinity, accounting for about 30 percent of the region’s arable land.
When Zhang, a veteran rice expert at the Qingdao Saline-Alkali Tolerant Rice Research and Development Center in Shandong province, first visited the field and saw that it was covered by a thick layer of salt, he immediately understood how difficult it would be to grow anything there.
“It looked like the field was covered by snow. The salinity and alkalinity levels were way too high. At the time, the field’s salinity level was 1.7 percent, but it fell to 0.5 percent after we grew rice for a season. The rice strains tested by the center can survive in soil within 0.6 percent salinity,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to improve the condition of the soil so we can grow other kinds of produce in that field.”
Under Zhang’s care, rice seedlings planted in Bayiawat in June have been growing healthily, adding a patch of green to the unrelenting beige of the sand dunes. This season’s rice will be ready for harvesting at the end of next month, he said, when interviewed on Wednesday.
“The experimental field looks like any other piece of farmland, because the secret of its fertility lies beneath the soil,” he added, referring to a subterranean network of pipes that provides a manageable environment for crops by constantly collecting and draining the salty, highly alkaline water that filters down through the soil after irrigation.
Fresh fields
The success of the saline-alkali tolerant rice experiment — which President Xi Jinping mentioned as one of the year’s key achievements in his New Year’s speech on Dec 31, 2017 — means Xinjiang could become a “rice basket” to rival those on the plains of Northeast China and the areas along the Yangtze and Pearl rivers.
Yuan Longping, an agricultural scientist dubbed the “father of hybrid rice”, who founded the center in 2017, said one of his dreams is to transform about 667,000 hectares of saline-alkaline land and produce at least 30 million metric tons of rice every year; enough to feed an extra 80 million people.
For China, whose population of about 1.4 billion is still rising, food security has always been, and will remain, a pressing issue.
However, in recent years the country’s urbanization process has resulted in the loss of farmland, meaning scientific development must fill the gap.
To achieve Yuan’s goal, the center has been developing technology to improve soil conditions and identify saline-alkali tolerant rice strains to cope with different climates, salinity levels and soil structures.
In addition to conducting research in Xinjiang, the center has five other experimental paddy fields in the Bohai Gulf in the east, in the northeast and in the southeastern coastal areas. Together, they represent virtually every type of saline-alkali soil nationwide.
“Although China can secure sufficient supplies of rice at the moment, we must prepare for rainy days far in advance, especially in light of the ongoing trade war with the United States,” said Zhang Guodong, deputy director of the center, at the headquarters in Qingdao.
“If everything goes to plan, we will submit our saline-alkali tolerant rice strains to the Ministry of Agriculture for certification later this year. It will be the first time that saline-alkali tolerant rice strains have been grown commercially in China. We hope to plant more than 667,000 hectares of saline-alkali tolerant rice across China in the next five to eight years.
Huawei Technologies has also helped to improve the quality of the soil. The tech giant worked with the center to produce microchips that will allow an intelligent agricultural system to monitor real-time soil salinity and alkalinity levels and transmit them to the scientists.
“We have ensured that all technologies used in the cultivation of the saline-alkali tolerant rice have been independently developed by Chinese companies,” Zhang Guodong said.
He added that in addition to the higher cost of growing the rice — the figures for which are difficult to ascertain — a shortage of water is a major factor that could cast a shadow over the new strain’s future.
On June 15, nearly two weeks after the rice seedlings had been planted, Zhang Lishan rushed back to Bayiawat after receiving a call informing him that an unexpected power outage was interfering with the operation of the motor and pumps in a well that provided irrigation water to the paddy.
“In the first 60 days, it is crucial to maintain sufficient irrigation to allow the seedlings to germinate and sprout,” he said. “Otherwise, they quickly dry out and die.”
While constantly phoning the local water authority to identify the cause of the outage, Zhang Lishan paced back and forth across the farmland, checking the tender seedlings.
“If these strains can survive the first few months in the harsh, dry environment here, it is feasible to reduce water consumption as they grow stronger,” he said. “However, if the water supply is precarious during the early stages of cultivation, our efforts may be in vain.”
He said the center plans to expand the experimental field in Bayiawat to 53 hectares in the next year from the current 20. “But it depends on whether we can source sufficient water supplies. Water resources in Xinjiang are extremely limited,” he added.
Zhang Guodong said, “In addition to irrigation, we need more water to reduce the salinity and alkalinity of the soil. That means a good water supply is crucial for growing saline-alkali tolerant rice on a large scale.”
Wild species
Some of those problems may be addressed by the work of Wuhan Haidao International, another major player in the development of saline-alkali tolerant rice.
The company, based in Hubei province, is headed by Chen Risheng, who discovered a species of wild rice growing near a mangrove forest in Zhanjiang, Guangdong province.
The original species has been developed into a family of saline-alkali tolerant strains, which are currently undergoing planting trials across the country.
Chen Yunfeng, the company’s manager, said saline-alkali tolerant rice serves as a natural modifier of previously unproductive land.
“By growing rice crops on such land, the composition of the salinealkaline soil is improved slowly but surely,” he said, noting that the special rice adds organisms to the salty land and improves the soil quality.
“We believe this biological method is more cost-effective and environmentally friendly than laying subterranean pipelines to remove salt from the land.”
Zhang Lishan, the rice expert, said Bayiawat’s residents are no longer surprised to see the crop growing on what is definitely the least cultivable land in the township.
“They said they plan to slaughter a sheep so they can cook pilaf next to the field and properly celebrate the harvest this year,” he said.