Chapter 990: Sterile Plants, a Rush in Hybrid Rice Research

At noon, Quan Yi, who had finished his morning exercise and breakfast, appeared on Jin Shu's back.

With his bare feet rooted in the sticky soil, he waved his hands to direct Jin Shu and divide the planting areas.

“The planting area is divided into four regions: east, west, south and north.

The east side, which is the most convenient location for people transportation, was designated as the medicinal material planting area for the three kinds of elixirs.

The west side, which is the farthest away and closest to Taiyi Crown, can be divided into the area for growing fairy grass.

The north side can be used for experimental rice hybridization and other food-related research.

The south side will be reserved first, in case there is insufficient planting area in the future, so it can be used as a backup."

After making the division, Quan Yi first came to the piece of soil on the westernmost side, and personally bent down to plant the seeds of the fairy grass he got from Dugu Bo one by one.

When Quan plants a fairy seed, a clear sound of germination can be heard from the wet soil.

After a while, accompanied by rich vitality, vibrant seedlings will grow on the surface of the black wet soil.

The hundredfold acceleration and enormous energy of this land directly drive the seeds to germinate.

There was no need for Quan Yi to take care of them carefully. These fairy seeds stretched themselves freely and took root and sprouted in this excellent soil.

When Quanyi planted all the seeds carefully according to the habits of each fairy grass, many colorful stars had already appeared on the bare wet soil.

The longer the age of the immortal seed, the more its value will increase exponentially.

The immortal herbs that Dugu Bo has are at least ten thousand years old. If Quan Yi can cultivate immortal herbs of one hundred thousand years old, its effect will definitely be raised to a higher level.

However, even next to the Yin-Yang Golden Pool, it would take a thousand years to cultivate a hundred thousand year-old immortal grass.

Therefore, this area on the west side cannot be used in the short term.

In order to make the most of this area, Quan Yi, in addition to visiting Dugu Bo, is also using all the power he can to collect various rare seeds in order to fill this area.

Even if you can't find the top-notch immortal products, common immortal herbs like ginseng, Polygonum multiflorum, Ganoderma lucidum, etc. can also be brought into the west area.

In this regard, not only Quan Yi is working hard, but the power of the islands distributed on the mainland is also playing a role.

It is just around the corner to plant the entire west area.

After dealing with the immortal seeds, Quan Yi flew to the north side.

Looking from a high place, unlike the other three dark areas, the entire north area is filled with lush green rice.

In the breeze, the fragrance of green grass wafts into the air.

Looking from a high vantage point, each rice plant is arranged neatly, like chess pieces neatly placed on a chessboard, densely packed but uniform.

Countless vast quantities of rice formed a blue ocean. Quan Yi's pupils contracted, and purple-gold light replaced the original color.

With the help of the purple-gold dragon pupil, Quan Yi continued to search for special rice among the vast amount of rice.

After a while, through careful observation, he quickly discovered several special rice plants.

You should know that rice is self-pollinating, which means that each flower has stamens and pistils.

When it self-pollinates, it drips pollen from the stamens onto the pistils to cultivate seeds.

But among so many rice plants, there are a few that are not like this. Their male organs cannot form normal pollen, react with their own healthy pistils, and reproduce normally.

If you have learned the basic principles of hybrid rice, you will know that there is a very important factor involved, which is to find the cytoplasmic male sterile line of rice.

This type of rice can fully accept pollen from rice with superior genes and produce hybrid rice.

Because there is no need to spend a lot of manpower and material resources on artificial castration, the cost of breeding and seed production will be greatly reduced and the efficiency will be greatly improved.

Of course, if large-scale breeding is to be carried out, it is difficult to expand the scale by relying only on a few scattered sterile plants.

Therefore, at this time, a rice cytoplasmic sterility maintenance line that can maintain this sterility is needed.

This special individual has the ability to maintain the sterility of sterile plants, but the amazing thing is that it can reproduce through self-pollination.

By combining these two, the sterile line that serves as the mother can be bred in large quantities.

After completing this step, we will finally look for a method that can restore the fertility of the hybrid seeds and give them hybrid advantages.

This is the three-line method for breeding hybrid rice.

Long before developing the island, Quan Yi taught the relevant theories to the agricultural department and asked them to conduct relevant experiments.

However, it is still somewhat unrealistic to find all three types of rice at the same time in just a few years.

However, now with this accelerated planting area, one day is equivalent to more than a hundred days.

The growth cycle of rice is more than 100 days, which means that a complete growth cycle can be experienced in one day, and a one-year experiment can be completed in one day or three days.

Quan Yi was experiencing firsthand how much help this terrifying speed could provide for the research on hybrid rice.

After finding the sterile plants, Quan Yi looked for male pollen from outside to carry out artificial pollination and waited for the results.

During this time, he flew to the east side and planted all kinds of medicinal materials needed for refining pills neatly on top.

There are relatively many seeds of these medicinal herbs, and since there are many varieties, the first planting took up a quarter of the area.

Based on the amount of main materials planted here, when they mature, at least 50,000 servings of pills can be refined.

When the seeds mature and they are planted, it won’t take long before the entire area is fully planted and can provide medicine for 200,000 people.

You should know that the elixir is a one-time use. Each person takes it once, and then can practice Xuantian Gong on their own.

The current population is 400,000. Even if the birth rate is high, it is impossible to consume all the 200,000 pills produced every year.

Although Quan Yi had overestimated the role of wet soil, when his expectations turned into reality, he still underestimated the horror of this holy land for planting.

“I feel like I can advance the research progress by decades before the relevant infrastructure is laid here.

The whole process has been sped up more than a hundred times. Even if staff arrive, can anyone keep up with this pace?"

Quan Yi rubbed his eyebrows and realized that if the efficiency was too high, there would be a problem that others could not keep up with it.

"It seems that we still have to let Jin Shu assist with planting, harvesting and other physical matters, and the researchers only need to focus on research."

After deciding on the future research method, Quan Yi still has a very important thing to accomplish.

After a few days of preparation, the entire barrier has entered a stage of steady improvement. During this period, the range expansion that was deliberately suppressed by Quan Yi can now be unsealed.

Quan Yi stood above the transparent light shield above the Yin-Yang Golden Pond, looking at the entire island in the east, and said softly:

“Let the entire island evolve together.

Yin Yang Five Elements Flame Array, expand!"

Under Quan Yi's command, the silent barrier quickly expanded outward, covering the entire island.