Lu Ming

Chapter 321 Detoxification
After coming out of the reservoir construction site, Liang Mi and the two sitting on the electric wheel car looked not very good. If the progress of the water conservancy project is slow, it will have a great impact on downstream agriculture.

"It seems that we can only intensify the renovation of drainage and irrigation canals." Mi Shuo said thoughtfully.

"There is also an upper limit. You can't dig the agricultural canal into a river channel." Liang Letian sighed: "In the end, it's just capillaries. If the upstream arteries can't be repaired well, the downstream will suffer disaster no matter what, but the degree is different."

After thinking about it, Mi Shuo said: "Vigorously expand the potato and sweet potato (sweet potato) fields."

"Oh, that's the only way to go, let's make up for two years." Liang Letian said helplessly.

Since the reservoir cannot be handled properly, the torrential rain and torrents in July and August every year are hurdles that cannot be avoided.In this situation, increasing the planting area of ​​root crops such as potatoes and sweet potatoes has become the only option for agriculture.

This principle is easy to understand: Potatoes and sweet potatoes hidden in the ground are far more resistant to flash floods, heavy rains, and Pacific storms than delicate products such as rice.

However, this strategy is not difficult to implement, because the staple crops in Tainan used to be potatoes and sweet potatoes, but now they just continue to increase the proportion of planting.

You know, with the current technical conditions of lack of fertilizers and less medicines, the yield of rice per mu is only five or six hundred catties; while the yield of one mu of potato fields can easily reach three times that of rice, and it can be even higher in the future ——To put it bluntly, they are all starch, and the people who travel through will naturally choose potatoes that can feed more people.

After confirming the future planting plan, the two returned to Chikan, and then went south along the asphalt road by the sea. After running for about 10 kilometers, they reached the dividing line between Kaohsiung and Chikan: Erren near the creek.

Since the residential area has not expanded to this area, it is very desolate, surrounded by black land exposed after burning.After running two miles east along the Erren River from the sea, a building appeared in the distance.

Here is the core asset of the General Grain Corporation: the fine seed base.

The fine seed base covers a large area and is composed of a biological laboratory, a greenhouse, an experimental field, a boiler room, and a power generation room.

The biological laboratory is the core building of the breeding base.

At first glance, the laboratory surrounded by four two-story brick-concrete buildings is no different from the small buildings of later generations.Large glass windows, iron railings, and white walls.

The equipment inside the laboratory building is also as close as possible to those of later generations.

All kinds of imported biochemical instruments including microscopes are fully equipped here.In addition, there are some "domestic" low-level experimental equipment including constant temperature culture rooms in the building.

After showing the purple leather certificate representing the identity of the crossing people/nobility at the guard post at the gate, the tricycle drove into the base compound.

After hearing the news, Yang Lexi came out to welcome her.

Yang Lele is relatively young in the group of Time Travelers, only 25 years old this year.This gentleman majored in bacteriology at university, but he put his major aside after graduation, and went to a trading company to become a "business manager" specializing in Zambia.

Originally, he thought that life would continue like this. Who would have thought that after time travel, he would pick up the major he had thrown away? Yes, "the country and the people" need his major.

Seeing a group of people in white coats coming out of the building, Liang Letian and Mi Shuo immediately put smiles on their faces, pretending to be inspectors, and warmly stepped forward to hold Yang Lele's hand and shook : "I'm happy, I've worked so hard, there's a serow in the car, and our two brothers specially called to cook the casserole for you!"

"Thank you!" Yang Le's round face was also full of smiles: "I have beef here, let's have a good meal tonight."

After speaking, a group of people entered the building.

The first floor is mainly used for various experiments and storage, and Yang Le usually synthesizes some chemicals here.

After entering the foyer, the entourage brought by Liang Letian and the others stayed here: Everyone's purpose today is clear to each other, mainly to go to the second floor to have a look, so only Liang Mi and the others went upstairs.

After going up to the second floor, Liang Mi and his wife changed into isolation suits and rain boots in the hallway, and then walked through the lime water pool for disinfection, and then followed Yang Lele into the No. [-] laboratory.

The seemingly quiet laboratory actually has a lot of people inside: 10 "female workers" in white coats, each with a microscope in front of each of them, and some bottles and cans behind the long table busy.

Leaning over to look behind a female worker, Mi Shuo, who had worked as an agricultural technician in a seed company, whispered in Yang Le's ear, "That's right, the technology is getting more and more proficient."

"Practice makes perfect." Yang Le smiled and nodded.

Potato and sweet potato seedlings need to be detoxified.The work of these female workers is one of the detoxification processes.

For sweet potato and improved potato varieties, as the number of planting generations increases, the plants will become smaller, the growth will decline, the tubers will become smaller, and the yield and quality will decrease significantly-this is called species degradation.

Seed degradation seriously affects crop yield, but what is the cause of species degradation?Virus.

Sweet potato and potato plant viruses will continue to spread in crops through infectious sources such as insects, nematodes, and fungi, causing crops to deteriorate from generation to generation.

The most important work of the seed base at this stage is to use the shoot tip detoxification technology commonly used in later generations to obtain non-toxic improved crop varieties.

Anyone who has seen moldy bread or potato chips will know that the mold is not evenly spread on the bread, but forms plaques of different sizes like drops of ink, which is the normal form of bacterial community growth .

The shoot tip detoxification technology also takes advantage of this: the virus is not evenly distributed in plant tissues.

The virus-free technology is to first cut off the top growth point on the infected tuber, and then perform tissue culture on these parts with a relatively low virus concentration to generate seedlings, and then select non-toxic seedlings from them through testing.

These female workers who are busy on the table, what they are doing is the procedure of using a microscope to select non-toxic seedlings.

Generally speaking, the virus-free rate of a wave of seedlings is only a few percent or a few thousandths.This is also the reason why the laboratory needs so many female workers: each of them has to tediously test hundreds or thousands of materials before picking out some non-toxic seedlings.

In terms of their real identities, these female workers are ordinary migrant women who came across the sea, and most of them are illiterate.

However, just like those female workers on the electronic production line in the later generations, the laboratory does not require them to know any science and technology, but only needs them to use the natural patience of women to mechanically pick out the non-toxic seedlings.

After passing through the No. [-] laboratory, the three of them came to the long strip-shaped second laboratory.

Laboratory No. [-] opened up all the remaining rooms in the building.The long passage is flanked by large-format glazing, as well as additional wooden windows on the exterior - designed to provide shade from light and storms when required.

The corridor after opening is very sci-fi.

Long strips of LED light tubes extend along the top of people's heads to the distance. The corners are extended cast iron plumbing pipes. Layers of iron frames are piled up on both sides of the aisle. In the room, the light tubes inside are also emitting soft light, illuminating the rows of triangular glass vessels brightly.

This is the nursery for seedlings.

The non-toxic seedlings selected by the female workers will be cut into sections and put into triangular flasks.A kind of MS culture medium will be prepared in the bottle in advance. After the non-toxic seedlings are put in, they will take root in 3-5 days under suitable temperature and light conditions, and grow into small plants in about 20 days. At this time, they can continue to cut into sections and continue to reproduce , or directly used for breeding the original species.

All the above processes must be carried out in a sterile state, which is why everyone wears isolation suits.

Of course, in addition to this detoxification method, the laboratory will also use heat treatment and some chemicals to deal with different varieties of viruses.

As for the daily work of the director of the base, Yang Lexi, in addition to managing the base personnel and these seedlings, he is also responsible for synthesizing chemical agents and culture fluid for seedlings in the downstairs laboratory.

This work takes up most of his time: the chemical composition in the culture medium is relatively complicated, and the chemical plant is limited by the scale, so it can only provide raw materials in bulk at the moment, and Yang Leyi still needs to do it himself in the laboratory for the specific fine operation of.

In the aisle mixed with sunlight and electric lights, Liang Lexie carefully looked at the petri dishes in the glass box for a while, then turned to ask Director Yang a key question: "We will reclaim 30 to 40 mu of new fields next year." , the main crops are potatoes and sweet potatoes, can you supply seedlings here?"

"No, I'm too busy." Yang Yue shook his head and said, "It's good to say that we can screen and raise seedlings in batches, just add some female workers. Anyway, it's all done according to the rules. But I can't be busy with the synthesis of culture fluid alone. Need help."

When Yang Lele said this, he emphasized his tone: "That kind of real assistant."

"I understand, I understand." Liang Cifu rubbed the center of his eyebrows with his fingers, which was his habitual action when he encountered troublesome things.

The so-called assistants refer to those top students in Chikan Middle School.Biology and chemistry are advanced subjects. At this stage, only a few top students in middle school have been exposed to junior high school physics and chemistry.And what Yang Lele needs is this kind of student who can be trained as a researcher all year round.

However, things are not that simple.Before this, the big office specifically issued a text for each department: top students must complete all high school courses before considering part-time work and part-study.

So Lao Liang has a headache now: laboratory assistants must have knowledge of physics and chemistry, but these people are now locked up.

After habitually looking at each other with Mi Shuo, it was Mi Shuo who said a hard word: "This matter must be resolved, there will be more fields to be cultivated in the future, and Director Yang will not be too busy to die alone." Come, you will go to Lao Xia tomorrow."

"Well!" Liang Letian also realized the seriousness of the problem now: "Anyway, the situation is like this. This is not because we forced the palace. I will bring it up at the meeting tomorrow and see what they say. If there is a species, don't ask for food!"

(End of this chapter)