ObituaryYuan LongpingTo feed the worldYuan Longping, developer of hybrid rice, died on May 22nd, aged 90He was wandering in a ricefield of dreams. The plants were tall as sorghum, taller than a man.Their panicles hung full as brooms, and each grain was as big as a peanut.After walking a while he lay down in the leaf-shade with a friend, quite hidden.A rest was a good idea, because the wonder-plants went on and on. In fact, they covered the world.Then Yuan Longping woke up, laughing.The rice plants he had tended for decades at Anjiang and then Changsha in Hunan province,sowing and nurturing them, visiting daily on his motorbike to inspect them, were not quite there yet.But they still deserved their name of super rice.The leaves were straighter and taller than ordinary, and the grains plumper.They had all the vigour of the wild strain that he and his team had found,after much searching, beside a railway line in Hainan in 1970 and had cross-bred, over careful years, with the domesticated variety.Sceptics told him he was wasting his time, since rice was a self-pollinator.He believed that cross-breeding was universal and, besides, that it always made the offspring stronger.
讣告袁隆平愿天下再无粮忧杂交水稻之父袁隆平于5月22日辞世,享年90岁他在理想的稻田中徜徉，水稻长势喜人，有高粱那么高，甚至高过了人头；沉甸甸的稻穗有扫把那么长，谷粒有花生那么大。走了一会，他和朋友就躺在禾下乘凉，谁也看不到他们。休息一下是个好主意，神奇水稻的长势仍在继续，它们遍布了全球。这时，袁隆平就会大笑着醒来。他在湖南安江和长沙照料了几十年的水稻，播种、培育，每天骑摩托车去查看长势。这些水稻目前还没有达到理想的水平，但也绝对配得上“超级稻”的称号。比起普通水稻，超级稻的叶片更直更高，谷粒也更饱满，延续了之前发现的野生水稻的全部优势。1970年，经过大量搜寻，袁隆平团队在海南的一条铁路沿线发现了这些野生品种，经过多年的精心栽培，他们成功实现了与已驯化品种的杂交。有人质疑他浪费时间，因为水稻属自花传粉作物。但袁隆平坚信杂交现象普遍存在，甚至让新生的作物更强壮。
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