The father of wheat is Li Zhensheng.
Li Zhensheng (February 25, 1931-), a native of Zibo, Shandong, is a geneticist, agricultural development strategy expert, wheat genetic breeder, and the founder of distant hybrid breeding of wheat in China. Ji" and "the father of distant hybridization of Chinese wheat".
Graduated from the Department of Agricultural Sciences of Shandong Agricultural College (now Shandong Agricultural University) in 1951. He was elected as an academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences in 1990 and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1991.
Li Zhensheng is mainly engaged in research on wheat genetics and distant hybrid breeding. At the same time, he has carried out research on agricultural development strategies. He has systematically studied the distant hybridization of wheat and wheatgrass and bred the "Xiaoyan" series of varieties, and bred the "Xiaoyan" series of varieties. High-yielding, disease-resistant, high-quality wheat varieties such as Xiaoyan No. 4, 5, and 6, and new hybrid types such as Xiaoyan wheat octoploid, heteroadditional lines, hetero-substitution lines, and ectopic lines have been bred.
Character evaluation
Academician Li Zhensheng loves the motherland and has noble moral character. He has dedicated his life to research on distant hybrid genetics and breeding of wheat, making contributions to China’s food security, agricultural science and technology progress and sustainable agricultural development. He has made outstanding contributions and trained a large number of academic leaders and scientific and technological backbones. They are now active on the front line of agricultural scientific research and continue to contribute to the sustainable development of Chinese agriculture.