On par with Yuan Longping in feeding hundreds of millions of people, why isn’t Li Zhensheng, the “father of hybrid wheat,” well-known?

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In May 2021, Academician Yuan Longping, known as the “Father of Hybrid Rice” in China, passed away suddenly. Upon the news, the whole country mourned; the passing of Mr. Yuan plunged the people of the entire nation into grief. Yet while we shout “Long live Yuan Gong” to bid farewell to this elder, another “father of hybrid wheat” seems to be rarely mentioned. ““The South’s Yuan, the North’s Li” illustrates the undisputed status of these two individuals in the field of developing food crops. Then why, despite both being great contributors to feeding humanity over the ages, is Li Zhensheng, known as the “Father of Hybrid Wheat,” far less famous than Academician Yuan Longping? I. “Yuan in the south and Li in the north” fed 1.4 billion Chinese people. In 1960, a severe nationwide famine struck our country. The harsh natural conditions have led to further poor harvests of wheat and rice, which already have low yields; as a result, there is a shortage of food. One can only imagine the difficult living conditions of the people. Countless scientists have witnessed the deterioration of people’s lives due to insufficient food production, with countless individuals dying of hunger. It was against this backdrop that Academician Li Zhensheng began to devote himself to plant breeding. Around the same time, Academician Yuan Longping, who was born in the 1930s alongside him, also began to engage in research on hybrid breeding. Perhaps at that time they were complete strangers, had never met, and didn’t even know of each other’s existence, but the currents of time never cease to flow, and the wheels of history will eventually bring them together. At the beginning of the research, Academician Li Zhensheng encountered many problems one after another. First, his hypothesis was that wheat suffered from a certain rust disease, while weeds under the same conditions were not affected by it; therefore, he intended to transfer the resistance genes of the weeds to wheat through crossbreeding. As is well known, cross-species hybridization is extremely difficult, and successful cases of hybridization between species with different DNA are exceedingly rare. To successfully develop the variety he wanted, Li Zhensheng worked day and night, enduring great hardship. But at that time, he had the support of only a few botanists and plant pathologists; the vast majority dismissed his approach of starting his own independent work. It took him 23 years; although the process was extremely difficult, he ultimately overcame the problems of sterility and excessive segregation in the offspring of hybrid varieties, and developed wheat varieties of the Xiaoyan type that are resistant to diseases, of high quality, and yield well. This wheat has excellent quality, good disease resistance, and very high yields; once it was introduced, it quickly became popular among farmers, greatly alleviating the problem of food scarcity. This also earned him numerous honors; he was hailed as the “Father of Distant Hybridization of Wheat in China” and received China’s **Top Science and Technology Award in 2006. “The research conducted by Mr. Nan Yuan and Mr. Li Bei can be said to form the foundation that sustains China’s 1.4 billion people.