Zhang Jun, the man who is talking about cotton breeding with CIP News reporter, is the director of Shandong Cotton Research Center and the winner of Shandong Technology Advancement Award. In recent 20 years, Zhang and his team have developed many new varieties of cotton, making great profits for cotton growers of Shandong province.
In the 1990s, cotton was grown wildly in Shandong, but the weakness of pest control was a key problem for the growers. According to this, Zhang decided to dig into cotton breeding.
"It was a long way to develop a new variety." Zhang told the journalist that his team went from Shandong to Hainan once a year to breed. The breeding center was far away from cities, extreme hot weather, countless bugs and ubiquitous snakes attacked the team all the time. After 20 years' fighting, Zhang's dream became true. They developed new varieties of cotton.
Today, Zhang and his team developed two new varieties of cotton which can prevent the damage from pest. The two kinds of insect-resistant cotton made over 5 billion Yuan benefits, and got a right of the new variety plant.
"Growing cotton in saline-alkali soil can increase the income of growers and improve the soil as well."Zhang said that, his dream was to grow more and more better cotton and made cotton growing in the whole country.
