On May 8th, the Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences held the unveiling ceremony of the "Scientist Spirit Education Base" at the Hengyang Red Soil Experimental Station in Qiyang, Hunan, along with a seminar commemorating the 95th anniversary of the birth of Academician Liu Gengling. Yang Zhenhai, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Academicians Bai Lianyang and Xu Minggang from the Chinese Academy of Engineering attended the event.
Established in 1960, the Qiyang Station was founded by Liu Gengling, a renowned Chinese soil fertilizer and plant nutrition expert and the first director of the station. Throughout his life, Liu dedicated himself to research and demonstration work in improving medium and low-yield fields, optimizing farming systems, comprehensive improvement of red soil in the southern region, and sustainable increase in grain production. He used the power of science to transform "duck droppings fields" and was hailed as the academician who emerged from such fields. Over half a century of scientific research and practice, he achieved outstanding technological advancements in the study of red soil in the southern region and agricultural development.
Liu Gengling is the pioneer of long-term monitoring of soil fertilizers in China. Long-term monitoring experiments have advanced research goals and creativity, exerting a significant impact on agricultural production by addressing many questions that short-term experiments could not answer. It has become a milestone in basic agricultural research and the development of plant nutrition and soil fertilizer disciplines in China.
Under the guidance and influence of Liu Gengling, Academician Xu Minggang and subsequent generations of Qiyang Station personnel have not forgotten their original aspirations, remembered their missions, continued to work hard in the red soil, and achieved a series of original scientific achievements. These efforts have strongly supported the agricultural and rural development in the red soil regions, forming the "Qiyang Station Spirit" characterized by perseverance, practical innovation, concern for agriculture, and service to the people. It is hailed as an "everlasting scientific outpost," a "monument on the red soil," and a "flag on the agricultural front line." In 2023, Qiyang Station was selected as the second batch of national "Scientist Spirit Education Bases."
Participants unanimously agreed that the "Qiyang Station Spirit" represents the valuable spiritual wealth accumulated by generations of scientific and technological workers at the grassroots level, with Academician Liu Gengling and Xu Minggang as representatives. It is a typical example of the promotion and inheritance of the scientist spirit in the field of agricultural science and technology. Agricultural science and technology workers should learn from and inherit Liu Gengling's patriotic spirit of loyalty to the Party and dedication to the country, the spirit of overcoming difficulties and serving agriculture, the spirit of seeking truth and rigorous scholarship, the spirit of long-term dedication and focused research, and the determination to uphold ideals and fulfill missions. They should become practitioners and fighters who promote the "Qiyang Station Spirit," writing papers on the land and delivering results to millions of households.
Qiyang Station is an important strategic support point for the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences to serve the agricultural and rural development in the southern red soil regions. Taking the opportunity of being selected as a "Scientist Spirit Education Base," it should vigorously promote the scientist spirit, uphold the three rural sentiments of "enduring loneliness and poverty," inherit the fine tradition of the older generation of agricultural scientists who "rooted in the red soil and wrote the history of spring and autumn," firmly shoulder the mission of agricultural science and technology self-reliance and self-improvement, and continue to write a new chapter in the spirit of agricultural science and technology in the new era represented by the "Qiyang Station Spirit." This will make new and greater contributions to advancing comprehensive rural revitalization and accelerating the construction of a strong agricultural country.
