Agriculture: Space Shoots
Agrobiotechnologist Lam Hon-ming elaborates on sending bacteria to space, training young scientists with Eastern and Western approaches, and feeding the world with heartier soybeans
Spectators burst into cheers and applause as the Tianzhou-6 robotic cargo spacecraft blasted off into the night sky from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in South China’s Hainan Province on May 10, 2023.
Among them was Lam Hon-ming, the Choh-ming Li professor of life sciences at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). As head of the academic institution’s State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology, Lam was not just excited, but proud.
Aboard the cargo ship, which docked at China’s Tiangong Space Station, was his team’s rhizobia specimens. Rhizobia are soil bacteria that have a special relationship with soybean plants. They are crucial to nitrogen fixing, a symbiotic process that converts atmospheric nitrogen into organic fertilizer for soybeans.
The experiment aims to explore how rhizobia genes mutate under space conditions, which could improve the bacteria’s nitrogen fixing efficiency and help cultivate more robust soybean varieties.
Since 2016, his team has been providing their three newly developed soybean cultivars to farmers in Northwest China’s Gansu Province. They are also planning to send the three cultivars into space for a soybean breeding experiment in a future launch.
Having led his research team for over 25 years at the State Key Laboratory of Agrobiotechnology (CUHK), Professor Lam is still passionate and ambitious. Lam not only wants to help his country address food security issues and cultivate the next generation of scientists, but also better feed and empower people across the world. He stressed in a recent interview with China News Service that Eastern and Western views are crucial to fostering future scientists.
CNS: How did you feel as you watched the Tianzhou-6 cargo spacecraft carry your team’s rhizobia specimens into space?
LH: That was the first time I watched a rocket launch so close to the launch pad. Our specimens were on board, so I was very excited and nervous. Everyone in the crowd was cheering and expecting the cargo ship to bring back some materials for us. It was a great experience. This can show more Hong Kong research teams that participating in national projects presents opportunities.
CNS: Now that your specimens of rhizobia and soybeans have returned to Earth, what are the latest developments in your research? How will these experiments benefit future research?
LH: We need to do lot of experiments, and it will take a while to observe how they have changed under space conditions. We are still preparing for further experiments.
In the short term, we want to see how the rhizobia and soybeans change in space and find out whether these changes would help them better adapt to harsher environments. We are aiming to create rhizobia variants and new soybean cultivars so more farmland could be developed on Earth.
As space travel becomes more feasible and more space stations are built, food supply will be crucial. We’ll need to grow grain inside a space station. Therefore, crops, soil bacteria and soil conditions are vital subjects for longterm research.
CNS: You graduated with a PHD in molecular biology from Northwestern University in Chicago and studied nitrogen metabolism at New York University as a post-doctoral fellow before returning to Hong Kong in 1997 to begin your soybean research. What prompted you to make this choice?
LH: When I went to the US, I had only one goal in mind – to learn advanced technology to serve my hometown. That has never changed. When I was completing my post-doctorate, I had job offers from both CUHK and a US company. And after thinking it over for a day, I made my choice – return to Hong Kong.
It was 1997, a very important year – Hong Kong’s governance was returned to China, and I felt that we were the real masters. Although Hong Kong did not have very good conditions for scientific research at that time, I was very happy that I could do my part for my home.
CNS: What are the similarities and differences between China and the US in scientific research? What areas can they learn from each other?
LH: The US values individual initiative more. When I first arrived there to study many years ago, my adviser picked me up at the airport and took me out for pizza. Then we went back to the lab and he said, “This is your desk. You’re on your own to find something to research.” He was not like Chinese advisers, who assign research topics. American advisers think that finding a research interest is what students are supposed to do.
I have come in personal contact with many venerable Chinese scientists who have a strong sense of mission. They work to change the country for a lofty goal, not just to serve their own ends. Sometimes they are willing to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of the team.
In my scientific research and mentoring, I combine the advantages of these two approaches, encouraging students to develop a sense of teamwork and mission on the one hand, while making everyone play to their strengths on the other.
CNS: What does your approach, a blend of Chinese and Western cultures, bring to scientific research?
LH: Half my graduate students comes from the Chinese mainland and the other half from Hong Kong, plus a few from overseas. Mainland students are hardworking, but they are less confident and unable to make the most of their abilities. They wait for their advisers to assign them direction for research. For these students, I normally leave them to solve some problems on their own, thus lifting their self-confidence.
Hong Kong students have a lot of ideas, but lack a strong sense of teamwork, so I encourage them to work with others. In this case, I try to make them realize that they are friends in scientific research, despite their different backgrounds and all the different ideas they have, and that they can move forward in the same direction while maintaining their individuality.
Educating the next generation is like cultivating crops. Since they have different characteristics and different conditions for irrigation, you can’t simply apply a one-size-fits-all approach. I hope to combine ideas in education and scientific research from China and the West, to train scientists of both high caliber and a sense of mission so they can contribute to society. I hope for every student to find their own path.
CNS: You once said that agricultural researchers should “write research papers in the fields and leave achievements in farmers’ homes.” Where does
that belief come from? How have your soybean cultivars – Longhuang 1, Longhuang 2 and Longhuang 3 – worked out in Gansu Province and in other areas?
LH: I saw that sentence while at the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and at once copied it down in my notebook. I’ve felt the same way ever since. It’s a great description. Agricultural researchers do not just publish papers for academia, but to really benefit farmers and improve agriculture.
To do that, we need to work with people involved in agricultural production. I’m glad to have many friends, especially Zhang Guohong, a research fellow at the Gansu Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He has been very helpful in the practical application of our research findings.
Since 2016, we have developed three new soybean varieties [the Longhuang series]. They have been planted on about 830,000 mu (55,333 hectares) of farmland. By 2022, they had generated more revenue of about 69 million yuan (US$9.56M) for farmers [than varieties that the local farmers had planted before].
Apart from boosting output and revenue, soybean plants work with rhizobia symbiotically to fix nitrogen, which enriches barren farmland with nutrients.
CNS: How were these soybean varieties introduced to South Africa and Pakistan?
LH: The project in South Africa is based in a village with very good soil condition, but the soil was not that wellutilized and young people there faced unemployment. The village offered us 20 hectares of land for a trial project aimed at ensuring local food security and creating jobs for young people.
Another project started in Pakistan in 2022. It began when Pakistan’s Consul General in Hong Kong visited me [in 2021] and expressed hope that we could support Pakistan’s agricultural development. I looked online for local agricultural universities, and found a professor who was a former post-doctoral fellow with us. He told me that due to Pakistan’s extremely high temperatures, which can get as high as 45 Celsius, only the soybean varieties he brought back from CUHK would grow. He invited me to Pakistan in 2023, hoping to introduce new soybean variants to improve the local soil, as well as to train local women, in order to help them change their lives and social status through knowledge.
CNS: What is your take on China’s development in agricultural science research over the past decades? What are some of Hong Kong’s advantages that help advance the country’s agricultural science?
LH: I am quite impressed by China’s progress in this regard. Since 2000, especially since 2010, China’s agricultural science has been leading the world in many ways. Many distinguished scientists have returned home after studying abroad. Scientific research teams have received staunch support from the government. All this has led to today’s remarkable development.
We are expecting even stronger agricultural research capacity for the whole country. Hong Kong teams could choose to participate in the areas where they have an edge and become part of the national research projects in their areas of expertise. Hong Kong is an international city that enables overseas exchange. As a part of China, Hong Kong could also serve as a friendly ambassador that introduces Chinese technology to benefit other regions.
CNS: You often organize trips for Hong Kong secondary school students to the mainland. What do you hope they will learn?
LH: Last year I led some secondary school students and teachers from Hong Kong on a trip to several cities in Northwest China, including Yangling [in Shaanxi Province] and [Gansu’s] Lanzhou, Wuwei and Zhangye. On the last stop of that trip in Jiuquan [where there is a satellite launch center], I told the students the planted soybean varieties they saw had been sent to the Tiangong Space Station. Such activities can help Hong Kong students learn about their country’s development and needs, and inspire them to see that Hong Kong’s technology is boosting mainland farmers’ revenues.