Zhou Kunlu, an old comrade and important assistant of Yuan Longping and a renowned rice research expert, passed away. Ranking | Breeding | Infertility | Breeding | Research | Hunan Province | Zhou Kunlu | Rice
Pengpai News reporter learned from relevant departments that Comrade Zhou Kunlu, a renowned rice research expert, former vice president and inspector of Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and special allowance expert of the State Council, passed away in Changsha on the evening of July 21 at the age of 79 due to ineffective medical treatment.
According to public information, Zhou Kunlu, male, Han ethnicity, was born in October 1944 in Anxiang County, Hunan Province. He is a member of the Communist Party of China and graduated from Changde Agricultural School in Hunan Province in 1966. Zhou Kunlu has served as the Secretary of the Party Branch of Hunan Rice Research Center, Vice President and Inspector of Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He is also a researcher of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of Hunan Province, an expert enjoying the special allowance of the State Council, a representative of the Fifth National People's Congress of Hunan Province, a representative of the Seventh Party Congress of Hunan Province, and a representative of the 13th, 14th and 15th National Congresses of the CPC.
Introduction to the official website of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee Retired Cadres Bureau: Zhou Kunlu joined a research team led by Yuan Longping in 1970 and began to engage in rice research. With a tenacious spirit of hard work, courage to innovate, rigorous scientific attitude, and pragmatic work style, he has achieved brilliant achievements in the field of rice research
One is to cultivate the largest application area of the sterile line V20A and the strong dominant combination Weiyou 6, which has made significant contributions to the success and development of rice. V20A male sterile line has stable fertility, good combining ability, and high outcrossing rate. It is an excellent breeding material for preparing strong advantageous combinations and transforming new male sterile lines. It is one of the two most widely used and long-lasting male sterile lines in three line rice. The Weiyou 6, which he cultivated in 1975, has been promoted for a total of 210 million acres over the years, achieving a huge increase in production. The achievement of "Weiyou 6 Breeding" won the first prize of the 1980 Hunan Province Major Science and Technology Achievement Award, ranking first. In 1981, "indica rice" won China's first special invention award, and Zhou Kunlu was a major contributor and main winner, ranking third.
The second is to overcome the difficulties of "early but not optimal, and excellent but not early", and cultivate a new combination of early maturity, high yield, and multi resistance, Weiyou 35, to create a new situation in early rice production in the Yangtze River Basin. He put the breakthrough in the selection of restoring lines and creatively used the compound distant breeding method to select the restoring line "26 Narrow Early", which was then paired with V20A to cultivate, causing the early rice planting area in China to move northward significantly, from Lingnan to Hubei, and expanding to the area between 23 degrees and 28 degrees north latitude. This achievement won the second prize for scientific and technological progress in Hunan Province in 1989, ranking first.
The third is to successfully cultivate fragrant rice sterile lines and fragrant high-quality rice, climbing a new peak in research and application of rice quality breeding. He believes that the key to improving rice quality is the sterile line. He broke the norm and bred high-quality fragrant rice sterile lines Xiangxiang 2A and Xinxiang A, selecting a batch of fragrant high-quality rice varieties such as Xiangyou 63, Xinxiang You 80, Xinxiang You 77, Nongxiang You 204, and Nongxiang You 676, which met the quality standards of high-quality rice issued by the Ministry, and their palatability and other quality indicators exceeded most high-quality rice varieties on the market. The research on the breeding of the new fragrant rice sterile line Xinxiang A and its application in fragrant rice was awarded the first prize of the Hunan Provincial Science and Technology Progress Award in 2004, ranking first.
Zhou Kunlu also participated in Yuan Longping's advanced deeds report meeting multiple times as an old comrade in arms and assistant of Yuan Longping. He once introduced at a report meeting, "Many people know about Teacher Yuan's brilliant achievements, but few know about the loneliness before this glory and the hardships behind success. It is hard to imagine that just cultivating three line hybrid rice would cost him ten years of youth."
