Chapter 296 Under the Glacier
Not only Jiang Miao received the news, he also secretly took the high-speed rail to Beijing.

The next day, at around three in the morning, Lin Shuya, also escorted by the security team, took another high-speed train to Beijing via another route.

Jiang Miao, who arrived in Beijing more than ten hours in advance, was meeting He Youwei’s father He Jintang at this time.

The two didn’t exchange pleasantries for too long and got straight to the point within a few minutes.

“Academician Jiang, we urgently invite you to Beijing this time because we have encountered a very difficult problem. It is not convenient to explain it directly during the telephone communication. Now let me briefly inform you.”

“I’d like to hear the details.” Jiang Miao waited quietly for He Jintang’s next words.

“In March, there was a clear break in the North Atlantic warm current.”

“I know that.”

“This North Atlantic warm current interruption event not only caused a major cooling and drought in North America and Europe, but also had serious negative impacts in the Southern Hemisphere.”

Jiang Miao did not interrupt.

“You should know that the seasons in the Southern Hemisphere and the Northern Hemisphere are opposite. In March, the Southern Hemisphere is in late autumn and early winter. However, due to the interruption of the North Atlantic warm current, the sea temperature in the South Atlantic is abnormally high, which further affects the sea temperature in the Southern Ocean. The Antarctic ice sheet, which was already melted by the high temperature in summer, has melted further in this abnormal warming.”

Listening to He Jintang’s description, Jiang Miao frowned, but still did not express any opinion. After all, at this time he did not know what the specific big trouble was.

He Jintang continued with a serious expression: “If it is just the large-scale melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, it will at most cause a rapid rise in sea level. However, the real big trouble is the ancient microorganisms frozen in the Antarctic ice sheet.”

“Ancient microorganisms?” Jiang Miao’s eyes focused instantly. When it comes to microorganisms, nothing is a small matter.

“Since April, many farms invested by COFCO in the coastal areas of southern Argentina have experienced grass withering for unknown reasons. They did not take it seriously at first, thinking that the grass was infected with fungi and bacteria.”

He Jintang took a sip of tea from the cup to moisten his throat, then continued, “However, by the end of April, large areas of coastal areas in South America, such as Argentina and Brazil, had outbreaks of leaf blight on pasture, wheat, corn, and rice. After emergency inspections, it was discovered that these grasses and grasses were infected with a new type of fungus, and several similar types of this fungus were also found in our Antarctic research station.”

“At present, our researchers suspect that the fungus is an ancient fungus that was frozen in the Antarctic ice sheet. This time, the South Atlantic Ocean warmed abnormally, causing icebergs that broke off from the ice sheet to float to coastal areas such as Argentina, which in turn caused the fungus to spread rapidly to South America.”

Jiang Miao finally spoke: “What emergency measures are there in the country now?”

He Jintang sighed: “At present, we have completely suspended the import of agricultural products from South America. At the same time, for the agricultural products that are already in transit, we require the shipowners to return to South America and seal up this part of the agricultural products first. At the same time, we strictly control each port and conduct comprehensive inspections and disinfection of imported products.”

Jiang Miao naturally understood the source of He Jintang’s sorrow, because with the current convenient global transportation system, these control measures were only temporary solutions and not a fundamental solution. Sooner or later, that ancient fungus would spread to Asia through various channels.

After a while, Jiang Miao made his request: “I need some samples. Without samples, there is no way to analyze its genes and characteristics.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve already communicated with COFCO. They have already chartered a plane to bring back several thousand samples of grass plants infected with the fungus. Now there are relevant samples in the laboratory in Beijing.”

“Can you take me to the lab now?”

“Aren’t you going to wait for Academician Lin to come over?”

Jiang Miao nodded immediately: “Okay, there’s no point in getting anxious now.”

Although He Jintang knew that the situation was extremely urgent, he was not in a hurry for the next one or two days: “You should take a rest first! We need to hold some internal meetings in the next few days, and you and Academician Lin must be there to provide some suggestions.”

“Okay, I’ll pay attention to my schedule.”

After thinking about it, He Jintang picked up his phone and called a few people in.

“Academician Jiang, they will serve as your liaisons in Beijing. If you and Academician Lin have any matters, just tell them directly or ask them to call me.” He Jintang introduced the names of the four liaisons to him.

Two men and two women, obviously this was a special arrangement by He Jintang. The four people were divided into two groups, following Jiang Miao and Lin Shuya respectively. After all, He Jintang has a lot of things to do now and it is impossible for him to keep in touch with Jiang Miao all the time.

“Well, I’ll trouble you then.”

“Hello, Academician Jiang!”

“Hello, Academician Jiang…”

He Xiaofeng, Tian Wu, Jiang Aiya and Wang Mei were all very serious. Jiang Miao could see their inner uneasiness, but he did not try to appease them.

After He Jintang left, Jiang Miao asked these people to make division of labor and handover arrangements. He did not stay here any longer, but stayed at the employee residential area of ​​Hailufeng Company in Beijing.

This employee community is located in the western suburbs of Beijing, very close to the Hailufeng warehouse supermarket in the western suburbs.

Jiang Miao lived in a villa area arranged by the company for senior executives coming to Beijing to temporarily live in. There were a total of 10 villas here, and he randomly picked one to move into.

Although he took the high-speed train for more than ten hours, he spent most of the time sleeping, so he was not too tired.

In the study room of the villa.

Jiang Miao opened his special laptop computer and collected relevant information on South American leaf blight.

Although there is a wide variety of information on the Internet, he only casually browses through them. The information that really catches his attention mainly comes from the internal databases of various biological laboratories and scientific research institutions in South America.

Jiang Miao, as if entering an empty space, quickly entered the internal databases of these research institutions and biological laboratories through hidden backdoors, and found their related research on the Grain Yellow Fungus in the past month.

Even the gene sequences had hundreds of data points.

Jiang Miao looked at these gene sequences and quickly figured out part of the situation of the Hehuang fungus through the Nuwa system and genetic formula.

This fungus is indeed an ancient fungus, not an artificial fungus created in European and American laboratories.

The reason is that part of the gene sequence of this fungus is different from the fungi modified by gene editing today, and it has some typical characteristics of ancient microorganisms.

Judging from the genetic map, it can be basically determined that the fungus was born in ancient times, when Antarctica was not yet frozen.

To be more precise, this fungus existed before Antarctica drifted to the Antarctic Circle.

If he guessed correctly, the era when the Aglaonema fungus was born should be a fungus that is highly symbiotic with local Poaceae plants. The local Poaceae plants in Antarctica can be immune to some of the harm caused by the Aglaonema fungus.

However, the grass plants on other continents were not infected by this fungus. After Antarctica was frozen by the ice sheet, the fungus was completely sealed inside Antarctica.

As for the grass plants in other continents, they have never been infected with the fungus, so they naturally have not developed immune genes against the fungus. “It’s troublesome…” Jiang Miao sighed.

It takes at least several decades for plants in nature to acquire immunity to specific microorganisms, and this may not be achieved even through human intervention.

For example, the Gros Michel bananas that Jiang Miao had previously studied had difficulty developing immunity to Panama disease and were almost driven to the brink of extinction.

The trouble with the grass yellow fungus now is that there is a huge age gap between this fungus and modern grass plants.

If it was a Poaceae plant from ancient times, even if it was infected, it would probably have a certain degree of resistance. After all, some variants of this grass yellow fungus also existed on other continents at that time.

There are great genetic differences between modern Poaceae and ancient Poaceae. Many immune genes to ancient microorganisms will undergo adaptive changes in sync with the microorganisms over time.

Therefore, when they suddenly encounter this ancient fungus, many grass plants are caught off guard.

Of course, Jiang Miao did not think that the Atractylodes chinensis could exterminate the Poaceae family. As long as this fungus wreaks havoc in the local area for decades, there will always be a part of the Poaceae family individuals that will survive and gradually rebuild the immune genes against the Atractylodes chinensis.

The question is, can humanity wait for decades?
The answer is self-evident.

That is impossible.

You should know that Poaceae plants occupy almost half of human food plants, including corn, wheat, rice, oats, barley, sorghum, rye, millet, as well as sugarcane and bamboo.

If all these crops were infected by the fungus and large-scale leaf blight occurred, the consequences would be absolutely terrible.

If humans cannot find a way to suppress the Acanthocereus fungus within two or three years, the whole world will fall into a terrible famine.

Of course, when that time really comes, humans will not be completely helpless, but will have to endure life without wheat, corn, and rice for several years or even more than ten years.

Humans currently have other food crops, such as potatoes, cassava, sweet potatoes, soybeans, and chickpeas, which can barely serve as substitutes.

Sugar can be replaced by sugar beets.

Bamboo is more troublesome, but Jiang Miao estimates that bamboo will not be infected by the fungus because he found that among the currently infected Poaceae plants, those with relatively low lignification levels are mainly Poaceae plants. Those with relatively high lignification levels, such as bamboo and sugarcane, are more resistant.

Therefore, as the sugarcane with the highest level of lignification, it is estimated that it is difficult to be completely infected.

Of course, Jiang Miao couldn’t guarantee this kind of thing. He had to wait until a comprehensive study was conducted in the laboratory before he could determine the infection situation.

However, it is a foregone conclusion that there will be major problems with global food supply this year.

After all, North America and Europe are still suffering from cold waves and droughts, which has delayed spring plowing by more than a month.

South America and South Africa are facing a serious grass crisis, and the local wheat, corn and rice production capacity is expected to be greatly reduced.

Fortunately, the southern hemisphere is about to enter winter, which is conducive to suppressing the large-scale spread of fungi. As long as it is well controlled and assisted by sterilization drugs, the spread of this fungus to other continents should be delayed by about a year.

That evening, Lin Shuya also arrived.

She came straight over to meet Jiang Miao.

After hearing the whole story, Shuya frowned, “It’s really hard to prevent and control the sudden appearance of fungi. Unless we stop importing agricultural products and don’t allow anything from South America to land, it will spread here sooner or later.”

Jiang Miao shook his head helplessly: “This won’t work. After all, we have a land border with the Indochina Peninsula. Once Southeast Asia falls, it will spread through migratory birds and we won’t be able to prevent it at all.”

“What do you think?” Shuya looked at him.

“We should prepare for both situations.” Jiang Miao paused for a moment, then expressed his thoughts: “On the one hand, we should expand the planting scale of non-gramineae crops, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava, and soybeans, to avoid being wiped out in one fell swoop.”

“Here’s a solution.”

“Another preparation is to breed new varieties that are resistant to the fungus as soon as possible, or develop safe pesticides that specifically inhibit the fungus.”

Jiang Miao did not find breeding difficult. If he put his all into it, he could probably refresh the global varieties of grass crops within one or two years.

Safe drugs for the Graminoids fungus are also not a problem for Jiang Miao. As long as he gets the relevant fungal samples, he can develop an effective drug in a few days.

The problem is to reasonably regulate the research and development time of drugs and new varieties, neither too fast nor too slow.

Therefore, now we can only suffer abroad.

Shuya knew her husband’s scientific research ability, so she was not too worried: “The samples have arrived, how are we going to study them?”

“I prefer independent research. After all, our company has a lot of confidential technology. Mr. He also expressed his understanding of this.”

“Independent research?” Shuya nodded. “Sure, but the research on gramineous crops is still stronger in our headquarters. Should we apply to bring the strains back to Shanmei?”

“Of course, otherwise how can we conduct research in Beijing?”

The two chatted for more than an hour.

That evening, I attended an internal meeting. Those who participated in the meeting were top scientific researchers and official personnel related to biology and agriculture in China.

No one dragged their feet. After all, this matter was too troublesome and if we were not careful it might lead to a complete collapse of the global order.

Over the next three days, Jiang Miao and Shu Ya participated in eight internal meetings in succession.

Through these meetings, a preliminary solution was finally reached.

At this time, the domestic Internet also began to comprehensively report on the Acanthophoria fasciatus crisis in South America. After all, this kind of thing cannot be concealed, and the authorities can only conduct scientific popularization and reassure people in advance.

Jiang Miao and others naturally had to go on the show to calm the public and avoid causing market panic.

Because various food robberies have begun to break out abroad, especially in South America. In less than a month, not only has everyone been rushing to buy food, but there have even been vicious food robbery cases.

Europe and the United States did not stop either. After all, they had experienced a chaotic food-grabbing trend before, and now it was just further fermenting.

(End of this chapter)