Study On The Development Of Wheat Production And The Support Of Science And Technology In China

Wheat is one of the important rations of residents' life and the important food commodities and trade grain. So the role of wheat in food security is increasingly outstanding. With the economic level improving and the food consumption structure changing, the wheat consumption tendency will change too. In the future, wheat consumption demand will convert from mainly to medium-gluten wheat necessarily utilized in traditional processing into gradually at the same time increasing of the consumption of strong-gluten, medium-gluten and weak-gluten wheat. So it will put new demands on the development of the wheat production and its scientific and technological support.In this paper, based on the production target, area, and yield of wheat during different periods, the author divided the wheat production during 1949-2006 to the three main phases which were development before Rural Reforming and Opening-up during 1949-1978(the first phase), steady developing period during 1978-1997(the second phase) and restoring and climbing period during 1998-2006(the third phase). The first phase was further divided into four periods.1) the rapid revival and development of wheat production during 1949-1965, with the main characteristic of rapidly expanding of wheat area and yield, and the contribution from planting area increasing and yield increasing to the total wheat output were 52.4% and 47.6% respectively. The main reason was breeding of fine varieties.2) the decreasing and recovering period during 1957-1965. As the new Stripe Rust appearance, Bima-1 and other wheat varieties were infected, the wheat production significantly reduced. 3) quick development period during 1965-1972, the yield increasing had played a decisive role, accounting for 80%.4) rapid development period during 1973 -1978, the contribution from planting area increasing and yield increasing to the total wheat output were 30% and 70% respectively.The main characteristic in the second phase were as follow: the wheat yield increased more than doubled, the area remained in 4.4 million mu (29,330,000 ha), the main increased in output by raising yield, accounting for 95%. The main characteristic in the third phase were as follow: since the beginning of 1998, wheat area had an obvious downward trend, although restored in recent years but people paid more attention to improving the quality, so yield climbed into the difficult phase after reached a high level.The changes and characteristics of wheat planting regions were systematically analyzed to further explore how the science and technology to play a role of the production of wheat in different regions. From 1950s to 1990s, the wheat production areas were divided into 10 regions according to the ecological environment and production conditions and ecological adaptation of varieties. With the development of wheat industry, the regional distribution gradually changed to some high-quality and high-yield wheat advantage zones, especially after the accession to the WTO. With the concentration of wheat production gradually growing, 14 provinces and autonomous regions had obvious scale advantage. In the future, the wheat production areas should be divided into 5 advantage regions which were Huang-Huai-Hai, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, southwest, northwest and north-eastern.Using the gravity centre offset method, the author analyzed the dynamic change of wheat production gravity center. The results displayed that the gravity center of wheat area generally moved to the North and the West since 1949; This change was the most obvious in 1960s and more acute in North-South than that of East–West. But recently, the North-South gap was gradually vanishing, while the East-West gap was still large. Part of the reason was that the land resource was limited in East but rich in West. During 1950s-1960s, it was obvious that the gravity center of wheat yield had traversed to East and North. Since 1970s, the center returned to the West, and the disparity between the East and the West reduced. After continued to offset northward to some extent, the center began to move back in the 1990s, the North-South gap was gradually narrowing. Yields gravity center moved with the level of wheat production, it always offset to the region where give priority to the use of advanced technologies and superior varieties. The excursion distance of wheat area gravity centre was the shortest and the wheat yield's was the farthest, while wheat output's was between them.Based on regional distribution analysis, the replacement and breeding and extending of superior wheat varieties in each advantage region were surveyed to analyze how scientific research to support development of the wheat production. A total of 7 times of large scale replacement of wheat varieties were conducted in national wheat industry. Each replacement and extending of varieties stopped the downward trend of wheat yield caused by degradation of varieties. So that the wheat yield greater improvement can be seen, wheat production sustainable development can not be separated from the replacement of the species.The wheat breeding goal was different in different times. Before 1990s, the main objective was yield so that improving disease-resistant and lodging-resistance of varieties were enhanced ignored of the quality of products. Until the late of 1990s, wheat breeders began to focus on quality improvement, wheat breeding goal gradually changed to the wide-adaptability, high-yield, high-quality direction. Specialized such as high gluten, middle gluten and weak gluten wheat breeding started on the agenda.Besides replacing varieties, research and extending of high-yield wheat cultivation technology was a strong support of the sustainable development of wheat production. At this stage, these technologies were adjusting the amount of seeding, regulating fertilizer, ridging and conservation tillaging technology, etc. The regional layout of wheat research institutes had also played an important role in regional development. it was so effective in promoting replacement species in different ecological zones that these regional institutes became the scientific and technological support of regional wheat industry.The result of expert questionnaire displayed some problems in wheat breeding, such as lack of fund and parent in conventional breeding, biotechnology not closely combined with breeding, molecular techniques not closely combined with conventional breeding.The focuses of scientific and technological demand were different in five major advantage regions. In Huang-Huai-Hai region, the focus was to strengthen the cultivation and management to reduce yield gap between test and field production, because there were a high scientific and technological level but shortage of water, etc. In middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River region, the focus was to strengthen the ability of drainage and avoided water-logging etc. In north-eastern region, the focus was to avoid drought and high-temperature damage, sometimes spike-sprouting caused by rain pre-harvest. In northwest region, the focus was to avoid drought. In southwest region, the focus was to avoid less sunshine and drought-flood damage, and so on.Through the typical investigation, the research productivity of wheat cultivation was analyzed. Both of the two units selected from Huang-Huai-Hai region and middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River region had obvious characteristics of its region, played an important role in replacement of the local dominant species. The new wheat varieties with obvious characteristics of the region bred by them always were the local dominant species.Wheat breeding institute had characteristics of obvious public welfare, notable social benefits, long-term study, difficult conditions, and little input, so that governments should be the main source of funding in order to protect the breeding of scientific research institutions development. Scientific institute should make a team with long-term stably and reasonable organizational structure to support wheat industry by providing wheat breeding, cultivation and management technology and fine breed extending system. The team must pay attention to the long-term stability of the organizational structure, to policy consistency and continuity of financial support.Through the comparative analysis about the scientific and technological support and wheat industry development some country, we summarized that these countries attached great importance to the research of wheat breeding which were mainly funded by the government; Management of the species were very strict, new varieties of wheat before extending must go through strict testing and registration; The system consisted of research, education and extension was propitious to experts and professors to transmit up-to-date knowledge to students, and to promote the best technology and information to farmers, and bring problems back to the scientific research in time.Finally, a number of policy proposals to support national wheat industry were put forward in China, such as an investment in science and technology policy"Regional coordination, focused in the western","increase investment to wheat breeding institute to training breeding team". The emphasis of breeding should be on improvement of conventional breeding and combination molecular technology with conventional. At the same time, the interdisciplinary exchange and cooperation should be further enhanced; Wheat quality control system should be established based on learning from foreign experience, and so on.