In order to establish an international exchange platform for agricultural research and effectively deepen cooperation intentions, continuously study and exchange advanced and efficient agricultural technologies, on December 17, 2019, Professor Zhongkai Zhang invited Professors Jiftah Ben Asher and Professor Araham Rami Horowitz of the "KATIF Research Center" of Israel to our institute to conduct an academic exchange meeting. Zhongkai Zhang, the director of the Institute, Zaiquan Cheng, the deputy director, Jia Chen, the deputy secretary, heads of research centers, staffs of related departments, and some scientific research personnel attended the meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting, Zhongkai Zhang gave a brief introduction of the Institute, focused on the research achievements since the 12th Five-Year Plan and the progress of the 13th Five-Year Mission. He also described the main research fields and research progress of each research team in the institute, pointing out that there are many scientific research projects and a wide range of research directions in the Institute, and it is possible to carry out deep-level cooperative research with foreign parties in multiple directions, especially in crop research and agriculture practical technology.
Firstly, Professor Jiftah Ben Asher from the "KATIF Research Center" briefly introduced his research center and personal research fields. KATIF is a research center located on the edge of the desert in southern Israel. It has a well-developed commercial operations laboratory. They focus on solving irrigation and soil testing issues and provide pest management solutions. Professor Jiftah Ben Asher mainly engages in water and fertilizer integration research and applications. The computer-controlled irrigation and fertilization control system led by him has basically realized intelligent control. Images or farmland water and fertilizer data are collected by drones or proximity sensors and transmitted to the computer terminal. After analyzing big data, we can get precise water and fertilizer usage dose, and then operate the phone remotely to control water and fertilizer in agriculture. Currently, this technology has been commercialized and has created many commercial benefits and value.
Secondly, Prof. Araham Rami Horowitz introduced his work in the insect diseases and pesticide control work, especially the in-depth research on reducing pesticide poisoning to bees and the biological prevention and control and management of pests. He suggested two measures can be taken to obtain a good harvest: one is to take active measures to protect beneficial insects, while the second is to kill pests with bio-pesticides, rather than broad-spectrum pesticides, reducing the pollution of pesticides on crops and farmland, thus laying a solid foundation on the development of green agriculture.
Subsequently, based on the principle of "exchange to enhance understanding, and collisions generate new thinking", the two sides held an in-depth discussion by the way of “Question &Answer”. These discussions are focused on the water and fertilizer precise control technology, biological control technology and the related fields of institute that are close to their research fields. The two sides also reached consensus that smart agricultural technology will become a basic and important technology for the development of modern agriculture.
In the end, Zhongkai Zhang made a concluding speech, pointing out that Yunnan's agriculture has the characteristics of diversity, variety and small scale, and the two technologies that water and fertilizer integration and green control of crop diseases and insect pests have extensive promotion value and market benefits. According to the actual situation of our institute, we hope to carry out cooperative research projects with foreign parties and cooperative training of talents in the basic research of plateau characteristic agriculture (reviewer: Jia Chen).
