In late September 2019, the outstanding figures of the "Lishui" of the Second World Lishui People's Conference in 2019 were officially released. Wu Kedian, the former deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Qingyuan County People's Congress and the "Modern Wu Sangong", was named on the list.
Recently, the reporter visited Wu Kedian's home. Although he has passed his old age, he is still working hard in the field of edible fungi. After receiving this award, Mr. Wu told reporters that the Second World Conference of Lishui People brought together more than 1,000 Lishui natives and people from all walks of life who care about and support the development of Lishui. It is very worthwhile to be commended at such a large-scale conference. Fortunately, very moved.
Wu Kedian has such reputations as "the king of mushrooms," "the god of contemporary mushrooms," and "Yuan Longping in the mushroom world", but in Qingyuan, more people call him "Master Wu", or simply call him "Modern Wu Sangong". In this regard, Wu Kedian said frankly that he was ashamed:San Gong Wu is not only the ancestor of Shiitake Mushrooms in Qingyuan, but also the ancestor of Shiitake Mushrooms in China. It represents the history and culture of the development of Chinese Shiitake Mushroom industry, and I only support the leadership of the party and the government. Next, the improvement of edible fungus cultivation technology is a small step in the historical process of the development of the edible fungus industry. Compared with the contribution of Wu Sangong, the ancestor of mushrooms, it is far away."
In 2017, the brand value of "Qingyuan Shiitake Mushroom" was 4.926 billion yuan. In the eyes of Qingyuan people, it is Wu Kedian who led the door to modern edible fungus cultivation that Qingyuan mushrooms can achieve today's results. Looking back at Wu Kedian’s work in the field of edible fungi for fifty years, he was happy to sleep at night, spent his entire life dealing with mushrooms, and became rich, with skills in his hands, and mushroom farmers in his heart, so that Shancheng’s "small mushroom umbrella" became Qingyuan "Big Industry".
In the 1960s, the 25-year-old Wu Kedian led seven of his peers in the village to set up the "Beimen Brigade Straw Mushroom Experimental Factory" from scratch in the current county seat mushroom museum and ecological park plot, and began his legendary eating Bacteria research career.
"At that time, materials were scarce, so we decided to use straw to make some articles. By chance, we learned that the straw mushroom planting technology had been developed in Sanming, Fujian, but it did not form a scale. We decided to study and study in the past." Wu Kedian recalled that year In April, a group of four of them travelled 300 kilometers in a car and spent two days and nights from Qingyuan to Sanming. After the other party learned of their intentions, they imparted the technique without reservation.
After learning, everyone immediately tried to plant. In April of the following year, the raw material scale of the small factory has reached more than 100,000 catties of straw, and straw mushrooms have also been harvested, and they are also exported to Southeast Asian countries through Sanming growers. This year, everyone and Wu Kedian were happy!
"A hundred years ago, Sangong Wu invented the method of cutting flowers and started the history of artificial cultivation of shiitake mushrooms. But this method is slow to produce mushrooms and the yield is low. Only 100 kilograms of wood can get 1 tael of dried mushrooms. We were wondering whether it could be like a kind of mushroom. Using mushrooms to cultivate mushrooms like straw mushrooms." With the cultivation experience of straw mushrooms, in 1966, Wu Kedian and his colleague Yao Chuanrong successfully invented Duanmu pure hyphae cultivation method.
In April 1979, Wu Kedian, a small accomplished person, was invited to participate in the county science and technology symposium. At the meeting, he boldly proposed using wood chips to produce shiitake mushrooms, which can increase the utilization rate of wood. This idea was affirmed by the county leader at the time, so the barefoot farmer was transferred to the county science and technology committee to engage in scientific research on edible fungi.
After entering the scientific research center, Wu Kedian began to introduce bacteria for cultivation. In October of that year, the cultivation of substitute shiitake mushrooms was successful, and 100 kg of sawdust could produce 10 kg of dried mushrooms a year. In the following year, he promoted this technology at 10 grassroots sites, and the yield reached the domestic advanced level. Then he began to promote the artificial inoculation of section wood to cultivate mushrooms, which was successful again. At this point, the ancient "Flower Chopping Method" that has been followed for more than 800 years has finally withdrawn from the stage of history in the tide of reform in the 1980s.
Sparing no effort, science and technology sparks in a prairie fire
In 1986, Qingyuan promoted the open field cultivation of artificial mushrooms and was included in the National Spark Plan. This year, Wu Kedian and his colleagues traveled to all towns and villages in the county, successively trained 586 demonstration households, technically guided 2,000 households with more than 5,000 person-times, and the cultivation methods of artificial mushrooms were fully developed in Qingyuan.
"You are the birthplace of Shiitake mushrooms, but it is Japan that really benefits from Japan. The current market for Japanese Shiitake mushrooms is in short supply, but Qingyuan's is not selling." In the winter of 1987, a foreign edible mushroom expert told Wu Kedian when he visited Qingyuan. The output of Yuanshi mushroom has increased, but how can the quality still maintain the original "basswood taste"? It was this sentence that caused Wu Kedian's thinking again.
In the future, while promoting the open field cultivation of artificial mushrooms, Wu Kedian looked for new strains everywhere. In 1988, he has cultivated dozens of strains, and after repeated comparisons, he finally selected the best quality "241-4". The "241-4" strain is a new naturally mutated strain isolated from the fruiting bodies of the 241 strain of Duanzhimu. Its fruiting bodies are large-leaf, round-shaped, and thick, with a cap diameter of 6-10 cm and a thickness of 1.8- 2.2 cm, short and thin handle, high quality.
The news of the success of the "241-4" experiment reached Shancuiwan Village, Lingtou Township. The 18 households including villager Ye Xiaohua planted 30,000 bags of 241-4 strains, and got a bumper harvest in October of that year. The market price reached 20 yuan per catty. By the early 1990s, almost all of the county's 241-4 had been exported to Japan, and the scale of cultivation had expanded year after year. In 1996, it reached 170 million bags, and the output of dried mushrooms reached 10,000 tons, far exceeding the total output of dried mushrooms in Japan at that time.
In 1990, Wu Kedian also researched the artificial cultivation technology of Maitake and found a town to do an experiment. However, the planting period was missed due to floods, but many mushroom farmers still insisted on planting and failed. They lost money that year. Never again plant Maitake. However, the mushroom farmers in Huangtian Town were so courageous that they tried to plant Maitake in the second year and profited. One is 30 years, and now Huangtian Town has become the country's largest Maitake production base, with an output value exceeding 100 million yuan.
In this way, Wu Kedian continued to delve into his work position, not only making Qingyuan mushrooms an industry for the villagers to "get rich", but also allowing Qingyuan mushroom city to "out of the mountains". He recalled that at the time, the colleague in charge of the official reception department said half-jokingly: "Mr. Wu, you have worked hard to make mushrooms, and our reception work is also very busy. In one year, we received 128 batches of teams from other provinces, counties and cities to study and study."
Retreat without rest
In 1998, Wu Kedian retired. Retirement did not stop him from studying edible fungi. Whenever he was free, he ran to the laboratory of the edible fungi scientific research center. He often stayed with his young colleagues for five or six hours.
"In my impression, during the 20 years of the 1980s and 1990s, my father was often away from home, and after retirement he often went out early and returned late." In the eyes of Wu Kedian's son, Wu Yongchuan, his father has always been used to this. This kind of hard work, this kind of poverty and happiness, can only feel guilty because of the inadequate care of the family.
In 2000, during an inspection tour to South Korea, Wu Kedian accidentally learned that South Korea was already cultivating capsule strains, which surprised him. He immediately asked the Korean exhibitor for two discarded capsule shells. Back to Qingyuan, he plunged into the laboratory again to start research. After more than three months of repeated trials, this technology was finally successfully explored, and the leap from the previous cultivation of 30-stage shiitake mushrooms to 200-stage shiitake mushrooms was realized, saving a lot of cost and manpower. And another project that he presided over the research-"The development and research of the technology of bag-grown flower mushroom without cutting water-retaining film bag" was the only project that obtained the national invention patent in the cultivation of edible fungus in Qingyuan County before 2004.
"Old Wu did his experiments by himself, and he was good at teaching students, and he was very strict with students." According to Ye Changwen, chief agronomist of the County Edible Fungus Administration, with Wu's insistence, more than 30 people were brought out. The research team, more than 10 of them have become the technical backbone of the bureau.
Since retiring, he has also served as the deputy director of the County Customs Work Committee. He has led veteran scientific and technological experts to serve more than ten projects such as agricultural cultivation and breeding of edible fungi, and directly provided farmers with face-to-face scientific and technological services for more than 3,800 people. In addition, he also wrote easy-to-understand popular science articles that introduced the preparations for the production of shiitake mushrooms and the filling operation procedures.
In 2010, Wu Kedian won the first "Outstanding Contribution Talent" award in Qingyuan County. The county gave him a bonus of 100,000 yuan, and he divided it up: 70,000 yuan was donated to the county customs committee for poor college students Helping students with love; the remaining 30,000 yuan was donated to the Edible Fungus Research Center for research funding, and I didn't keep a cent.
Don't let the streamer urge the gray hair, and let the rest of the heat dissipate the late spring. The study of edible fungi is a kind of sentiment for Wu Kedian, and it is also a kind of belief in his life. Wu Kedian said: "I will continue on the road of scientific research on edible fungi without hesitation."
