A small seed carries infinite hope. As the "chip" of agriculture, seeds are the foundation for ensuring food security and the effective supply of agricultural products.

Henan is a province with a large grain production, breeding and seed use, but it is not a province with strong seed industry. To solve this problem, in 2022, the Central Plains Agricultural Valley came into being and took root in Xinxiang City. Its planned area of ​​"one core and three zones" reached 1,612 square kilometers. As a seed industry innovation highland created by the whole province, Henan has always been committed to building it into a national seed industry science and technology innovation center, a modern grain industry science and technology innovation center, a agricultural science and technology achievement transfer and transformation center, and an agricultural foreign cooperation and exchange center.

Walking into the Central Plains Agricultural Valley, there is a golden wheat at the entrance of its scientific and technological achievements exhibition hall. "This is a variety selected by Xinxiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences - 'Xinmai 58'. 'There is a look in the fields, the actual appearance, and the actual yield is high.' is the evaluation of the people." Cheng Lili, deputy director of the Xinxiang Agricultural High-tech Development Promotion Center, introduced.

In 2023, "Xinmai 58" was auctioned by a company at a high price of 16.1888 million yuan, breaking the record of transfer of wheat single-variety production and operation rights at that time; in the same year, the production and operation rights of "Zhengmai 918" were successfully transferred at a price of 19.18 million yuan, setting a new record... The successful cultivation and industrialization of "Xinmai 58" and "Zhengmai 918" is a vivid epitome of Zhongyuan Agricultural Valley's focus on science and technology innovation and research and development.

A seed goes from the laboratory to the field, involving multiple entities such as scientific research institutes and seed enterprises, including R&D, production, sales, and services. How does the innovation chain and the industrial chain be coupled? In Zhongyuan Agricultural Valley, 58 innovation platforms at or above the provincial level and 53 seed R&D teams have been gathered, and 82 breeding enterprises have been attracted. Through the deep integration of production, academia, research and application, the problem of "two skins" in scientific research and production and the "middle obstruction" in the transformation of results has been better solved.

"To transform and apply an achievement in the local area, it is necessary to conduct corresponding research based on the local geographical conditions and climate environment, and do a good job in supporting work. At present, 12 teams of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences have settled in the Central Plains Agricultural Valley to directly contact local departments and farmers." Tu Hongtao, deputy director of the Central Plains Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told reporters.

"The Central Plains Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences has set up 54 demonstration sites in 14 cities and 24 counties in Henan. Through demonstration applications, it has accelerated the transformation of agricultural scientific and technological achievements from laboratories to fields." Yang Haifeng, deputy director of the Central Plains Agricultural Valley Management Committee, introduced.

The construction of the platform has allowed Xiaosei to move to the big stage smoothly. Since the establishment of Zhongyuan Agricultural Valley, 161 high-quality new varieties have passed the national and provincial approval, and 110 new varieties have been promoted and planted nationwide, of which the wheat promotion area has reached 100 million mu, accounting for about 38% of the wheat planting area in Huanghuaihai.

The innovative research and development of Zhongyuan Agricultural Valley is not only limited to staple food, but also expanded to multiple fields such as livestock, poultry, fruits and vegetables.

"Relying on the Central Plains Agricultural Valley, we jointly carried out individual accurate phenotype determination of breeding chicken growth performance with Huazhi Bio, and developed a smart breeding management system to provide accurate basic data and scientific decision-making solutions for breeding work." Li Donghua, director of the Animal Husbandry Station of Henan Agricultural University and member of the Poultry Engineering Center, introduced that the Poultry Engineering Center will build the National Domestic Animal Germplasm Resource Library (Henan Branch) here, and build a live gene library, DNA resource library, breeding material library and performance determination center for poultry germplasm resources.

At present, fresh vegetables are very popular in the market, but fresh vegetables are not easy to store, long-distance transportation is large in losses and high in costs. How to resolve the contradiction between supply and demand? Facilities agriculture gives the answer.

In the plant factory in the Central Plains Agriculture Valley, rows of vegetables are lined up in three-dimensional shape like stacked arhats. "Plant plants can be built up to 20 floors. Compared with traditional agriculture, the yield of multi-layer three-dimensional cultivation can be increased by about 100 times." said Zhang Tao, associate professor at Henan Agricultural University.

Earths of grain more than one foot long, threshing sesame more than 1.6 meters high, heavy brown rice ears, phosphorus-free Yellow River carp... In the Central Plains Agricultural Valley, there are many new technologies and new varieties. Today, the "good seed" of Central Plains Agricultural Valley is growing in the fertile soil of the Central Plains. In the future, it will strengthen the veins of agriculture with the bones of innovation. (Economic Daily reporter Zhao Shulan, Zhang Xiao)