Appendix 3
Reading to Learn
4A ‧ Ch.6 Reproduction and Heredity of Plants ‧ p.55
香港資訊 Science for You Hybrid Rice Variation in plants is not only a natural event, but can also be a result of human action. People choose plants with different good qualities and reproduce them manually. Apart from reproducing good-looking plants, this method can also reproduce plants with better qualities, such as high-yielding, drought-resistant and cold-resistant crops. Among these, modern high-yielding rice is a good example. Yuan Longping is a Chinese scientist who did a lot to help grow this type of rice. People call him the ‘Father of Hybrid Rice’.
rice
The principle of producing the hybrid rice is to choose two different types of rice for reproduction. The two types of rice have different good qualities that can work well with each other so that they can reproduce a new type of rice with good qualities of both types.
Yuan Longping studied how to increase the yield and improve the quality of rice by ‘hybrid breeding’. It was a difficult job. Yuan and his helpers had to go to the field to observe many rice plants with a magnifying glass every day. They were trying to find the most suitable types of rice for reproducing hybrid rice. After many failures and nine years of hard work, they finally grew the world’s first high-yielding hybrid rice strain in 1973.
Yuan Longping
Yuan Longping was not satisfied with the result. He kept trying to improve the technique and increase the yield of rice in China. He used scientific methods to solve the problem of food shortage in China. He was so selfless that he shared the results of his studies with other scientists over the world so that poor people in other countries could also have enough food to eat.
Let’s Think
1. What is hybrid rice? What are its benefits? 2. What can you learn from Yuan Longping in terms of scientific research?
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