As a mage, I just want to pursue the truth

Chapter 93 Soybean Strategy
Half a year after the release of Magic Coin, not only did China’s Internet giants set up astronomy and mathematics research teams, but American giants also did the same.

Financial giants like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley mine by investing in companies that specialize in mining magic coins.

Giants such as FB, Google, Microsoft, and Apple have set up dedicated research teams.

Among them, Apple chose to cooperate with Terence Tao and the University of California, Berkeley, relying on its location in California. Apple hopes that mathematicians can crack the Haber algorithm.

At the same time, Apple also acquired the collapsed Arecibo telescope and its astronomical observatory from the American National Science Foundation.

The Arecibo telescope is located in Puerto Rico. It is one of the only two giant radio telescopes on the planet, the other one is China's Sky Eye.

The Arecibo telescope suddenly collapsed at the end of 2020, and all the supporting towers broke.

The telescope's reflector dish was also smashed.

The telescope was later retired, but its geographical location is still very advantageous and it has a certain foundation.

So Apple simply bought it at a very low price, and then built its own giant radio telescope based on it.

Since taking the lead in the mobile Internet era, Apple has become quite wealthy, even richer than Microsoft, which was able to acquire Blizzard in full cash.

Of course, Microsoft, which invests money in the field of astronomical observation in this dimension, might not acquire Blizzard.

Cash flow is limited.

Of course, that’s not necessarily the case. Seeing that Genshin Impact has an annual turnover of 36 billion RMB, Microsoft is still willing to acquire Blizzard.

(The annual revenue of Genshin Impact comes from domestic data, which may not be accurate, because MHY is not a listed company and does not need to publish financial reports. The revenue of Genshin Impact is estimated based on the financial reports published by various listed companies.)
China itself has the China Seed Group Co., Ltd., which is the only central enterprise in the planting industry.

They were originally planning to move from Yanjing to Qionghai, but due to new progress in Jiang Yan's research, their relocation work was stopped.

China's seeds have always had a high proportion of domestic production for major grains such as wheat, corn, and rice, but many vegetable seeds have to rely on imports.

In fact, the global seed industry has become increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few companies in recent years.

Mainly including five companies: Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta, Dow and Bayer, the concentration of the seed industry is increasing significantly.

These multinational giants have integrated the seed industry through a series of mergers and acquisitions, and have established licensing networks to share benefits through an increasing number of cross-licensing agreements on genetically modified seed traits.

As for Chinese companies, others will not give you a chance, and you do not have the strength to participate.

The abilities that the magic brain brought to Jiang Yan allowed the Chinese government to see the possibility of making a breakthrough in the seed industry.

By relying on a large number of mutations, we screen out suitable mutant seeds, and then select the best from the best, conduct genetic level analysis, and use genetic modification technology to produce seeds with multiple excellent traits.

Luo Shu lived a hard life in the beautiful Hawaii, but Dong Wenxu, who was also engaged in scientific research, lived a happy life in Yenching.

He was ordered by Jiang Yan to farm every day. He found pleasure in farming and gradually became no longer averse to it.

Dong Wenxu was thinking that at worst he could just go back to middle school to teach biology.

As many PhD graduates return to teach in middle schools in the past two years, everyone gradually realizes:
It is not shameful to fail in the academic world; returning to teach in a middle school may be a way out.

Of course, this retreat will become more and more complicated.

But Dong Wenxu is confident that he will have no problem returning to his hometown to be a teacher. When you let go of the burden in your heart, thinking that your work must be this way and that you must have certain results, when you let go of this idea, you will feel that there are many beautiful things in life waiting for you to discover.

Dong Wenxu discovered this truth from the growth process of plants after planting.

He looked at the soybeans gradually sprouting in the incubator, and felt the process of life growing.

Like the previous experiments, we looked at crops purely from a genetic perspective, so we only considered which gene segment of the crop had mutated and which gene segment I marked.

What changes will occur in the crop after this gene fragment changes.

Treat plants as pure comparison objects rather than living things.

Only after the planting experience did Dong Wenxu realize the joy of life growth.

Jiang Yan called Dong Wenxu over and said, "We can start with soybeans and study the genetic diversity and genome evolution characteristics of mutant soybeans."

“We need to discover important traits, QTLs, and genes for high yield, disease resistance, quality, etc. for markers.”

"And on this basis, we developed various types of molecular marker technologies and identified germplasm resources, creating conditions for soybean germplasm resources to move from phenotypic identification to genotypic identification."

Soybeans have always been heavily dependent on imports. In 2020, China's soybean imports exceeded million tons for the first time.

The import dependence rate exceeds 80 percent.

The demand for soybeans stems from China's demand for oil and protein in recent years. Soybeans can provide both cheap edible oil and soybean meal feed.

Therefore, as China's demand has skyrocketed in recent years, the most urgent challenge Jiang Yan faces is to increase domestic soybean production and reduce import demand by optimizing soybean seeds.

Eighty percent import dependence is too high.

Moreover, there is currently no soybean seed suitable for the domestic planting environment, although China has developed more than 1,300 soybean varieties since its founding.

I saw in the media that China's hybrid soybean research is in the world leading position, but in fact the cost of soybean cultivation in China is much higher than that abroad.

Last year, the landed price of imported soybeans was 3200 yuan per ton, while the price of domestic soybeans was 5700 yuan per ton.

Domestic soybean cultivation and the purchase of domestic soybeans by enterprises all rely on subsidies.

Therefore, Jiang Yan asked Dong Wenxu to start with soybeans.

Dong Wenxu looked embarrassed: "There are only a few of us. The Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences basically has a team of dozens of people who specialize in soybean seed research."

"We might as well focus on the blank areas in China, such as soybeans, where the research team of JMS Institute is already very mature."

Soybean seed research is mainly concentrated in Heilongjiang Province, the northernmost province. The JMS branch in Heilongjiang Province has a special team to conduct research in this area, and the Heilongjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences headquarters also conducts research on soybean seed industry.

Because domestic soybean cultivation is mainly concentrated in the north, backed by granaries, we can obtain first-line planting data.

"What they do is their business, and what we do is our business. Our methods are different from theirs, and the results are also different."

"And we haven't even started yet, how do you know our genetically modified soybean seeds are not as good as those from Heilongjiang Province?"

(End of this chapter)