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On the 7th, Li Xueyuan, a researcher at the Economic Crops Research Institute of the Xinjiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, received another call from two seed companies, hoping to cooperate with him to "build an identity" for the cotton seeds that the companies plan to promote.

Not long ago, Li Xueyuan's team used the fingerprint construction technology to make the cotton variety Xinluzao 84 have a fingerprint and a QR code ID card. Now Li Xueyuan has led the team to build more than 130 Xinjiang cotton varieties fingerprint maps and QR code ID cards, combining the agronomic information, molecular fingerprint information, and specific gene identification information of Xinjiang cotton varieties to realize the identification of cotton variety identity and characteristics. At the same time, this technology has obtained a national invention patent, and has been promoted and applied in 10 enterprises in Xinjiang.

"Just like a paternity test, the fingerprint construction technology can identify the genotype differences of cotton varieties at the molecular level, which is more accurate and efficient than the traditional field identification technology of seed traits." Li Xueyuan explained.

"Xinjiang is a large cotton production area, but there are still many irregularities in the production and management of cotton varieties." Li Xueyuan said that the phenomenon of many varieties of cotton in Xinjiang is very common, with serious homogeneity, few breakthrough varieties, and seed knowledge. Problems such as lack of property rights protection are widespread.

In this context, Li Xueyuan led the team to jointly tackle key problems for 13 years, and formed the key technology research results of cotton seeds on the basis of comprehensively collecting and sorting out Xinjiang cotton main varieties, regional test varieties, and new varieties protection samples. The achievement created the Xinjiang cotton DNA identification system, constructed the Xinjiang upland cotton variety SSR-DNA fingerprint database, formed cotton variety information big data, realized the digitization, convenience and intelligence of variety management, and filled the gap in the construction of Xinjiang cotton variety fingerprint map.

Yu Shuxun, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the research results of key technologies for cotton seeds in Xinjiang are of great significance to promoting the development of Xinjiang's cotton seed industry, forming the industrialization of fine seeds, and improving the development level of the seed industry as a whole.