The Mystery Of Color Cocoon At The End Of 50

Green cocoons, yellow silkworm cocoons, pink silkworm cocoons and orange silkworm cocoons are blowing lightly, squeezing the cocoons close to each other and running away.

50 years running on the road of sericulture research, Gu Jiadong never believed in color.

Once the color cocoon was "inferior products".

Late at night, the Guangxi Sericulture Scientific Research Institute was silent.

In the silkworm house beside the Boulevard, silkworms eat the "rustle" of mulberry leaves, creating the illusion of "heavy rain knocking on the window".

Here is Gu Jiadong's "patronizing" place every day: to see whether the silkworm's territory has been invaded by rats, to observe and record the growth of silkworms, and to pay enough attention to the adequacy of mulberry leaves of silkworms has become a habit of his life.

More than 20 silkworms were raised in the silkworm house, and the silkworms would spin in five or six days.

Gu Jiadong said that they were yellow in comparison with ordinary silkworms.

At the time of cocoon, these silkworms kept on sleeping. Their heads swung 8 words or "S" for three days and three nights, spitting out orange, pale yellow, pink and light green silk, wrapped themselves in colored cocoons, and ended their lives.

In Gu Jiadong's office, he collected the colored cocoons of silkworm babies for nearly 5 years.

These colorful cocoons are of uniform size, and the color velvet attached to the surface shines with a light luster.

Now, the silk extracted from these colored cocoons has been made of colored silk to keep warm.

Gu Jiadong began studying silkworm speciality in 1960. When he first saw the colored cocoon, he did not believe that silk extracted from colored cocoons could make textile materials.

He recalled that at that time white cocoons were "mainstream", and the color cocoons were regarded as "inferior products" due to their thin cocoon layer, coarse silk and poor quality.

Especially in the process of processing, the color of the cocoon can not be preserved. Finally, this romantic cocoon can only be shelved.

The mystery of coloured cocoons

In 2006, the emergence of colored cotton as textile material aroused Gu Jiadong's right.

In the past 50 years with silkworms, in Gu Jiadong's view, silkworms spent the whole life of cocoon weaving and condensed the blood and blood of this creature.

In particular, colorful cocoons contain rich nutrients, such as 18 kinds of amino acids, protein, carotene in pink cocoons, chlorophyll in pale green cocoons, lutein in pale yellow cocoons, which are very beneficial to the human body.

Gu Jiadong said that these undyed dazzling coloured cocoons are more environmentally friendly than those printed with chemicals, and "things that return to nature are willing to be intimate".

At this time, Gu Jiadong, who was 65 years old, made a decision to improve the color silkworm, which was almost forgotten.

He and his team went to other provinces and abroad, and introduced silkworm eggs that could spit colored silk for cultivation.

During that time, Gu Jiadong encountered two problems.

How can the imported silkworm grow strong in the new environment? How to preserve the color of silk on the process of making silk? This is a problem that hasn't been solved in the decades of sericulture.

The first problem was solved by Gu Jiadong and his team using the method of changing silkworm genes, which allowed silkworms to run yellow blood and eat ordinary mulberry leaves and spit out colored silk.

But the second question is somewhat difficult.

Gu Jiadong said silk is composed of sericin and silk fibroin, and its pigment is attached to sericin.

In the process of processing silk, sericin will be decomposed immediately after high temperature, and then the pigment will be lost.

As a result, the silk extracted from colored cocoons turns white.

At first, Gu Jiadong tried to change the gene of silkworm, trying to make pigment directly attached to silk fibroin, so that he was not afraid of high temperature during processing, but failed.

In repeated attempts, Gu Jiadong and his team discovered that there was a gap in the silk fibroin, which gave room for pigment retention.

By improving the processing technology, Gu Jiadong let the pigment separated from high temperature be reflued to silk fibroin, so that the colored silk, which can be used as textile material, is born.

After nearly 5 years of experiments, the team led by Gu Jiadong has bred at least 20 generations of silkworms.

In 2010, silkworms bred by Guangxi Academy of silkworm science and technology can adapt to the growing environment of Guangxi better. The colored cocoons can reach 1.5 to 1.8 grams per grain, and silk reeling length is more than 800 meters.

At present, only a few areas such as Guangxi can produce colored cocoons in the whole country.

50 years with silkworms

In the two floor of Guangxi sericulture Research Institute, a golden dragon with a height of about 1.8 meters and a length of about 1.5 meters is displayed.

"Golden Dragon" leaped forward, as if to fly high in the clouds.

On the dragon's body, 3999 scales of golden yellow cocoons made the Dragon add a lot of anger.

In 2007, the "Golden Dragon" attracted a lot of attention in the China ASEAN Expo.

Gu Jiadong said that he made this dragon with the golden cocoon newly developed that year, which meant that Guangxi's silkworm industry took off.

"In 2000, Guangxi's annual cocoon output was only 29 thousand tons, ranking seventh in the country. After 2005, Guangxi's cocoon output ranked first in the country in 6 consecutive years, and in 2010 alone, the output of cocoon reached 224 thousand and 700 tons."

This is the data that makes Gu Jiadong proud.

Over the years, Gu Jiadong has been awarded the national science and technology progress award of the "silkworm summer and Autumn New Variety" Liang Guang two "selection and application and" silkworm improved seed development and application ".

Gu Jiadong, who was born in the 40s of the last century, first saw silkworms with dense silkworms in the silkworm house.

After slowly touching, he liked the "rustle" of silkworms when silkworms ate mulberry leaves.

After feeding the silkworms in the middle of the night, Gu Jiadong often sleeps in the silkworm house with "rustle".

Gu Jiadong, who is about to leave his job, said he would go once again to develop Guangxi's sericulture well, which is a retrospect of the history of Guangxi's sericulture and a review of his life.