On the tenth year of the natural disaster, I went to farm with me

Chapter 1106 Growing Potatoes

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Xia Qing arrived at the Ninth Center. According to the work arrangement, the Ninth Center was going to plant potatoes in four greenhouses that afternoon.

The Ninth Center decided to plant potatoes earlier than the lords because their supreme leader, Xia Qing, cultivated potato seeds with a toxic element content of 5.5-8.5‰ that could be used as seed potatoes in his own territory.

In July this year, Xia Qing harvested a total of 5715 kilograms of potatoes. She exchanged 2000 kilograms of potatoes harvested from the terraces with a toxic element content of 6.5-8.5‰ to the Ninth Center as seed potatoes for autumn planting.

The 2615 kilograms of potatoes harvested from the farmland could not be planted again because the toxic element content had reached 13‰, so she sent them to the Ninth Center to provide food for the employees.

Of course, these more than 4,000 kilograms of potatoes were not given for free, but were exchanged with the Ninth Center at market prices in accordance with regular procurement procedures.

In early July, the vegetables in the greenhouse of the Ninth Center had not yet grown and could not meet the catering needs of the employees, so they had to purchase vegetables from the lords.

It is now September. The Ninth Center has reclaimed more than 400 acres of land. The corn and rice in the fields are thriving. The vegetables produced not only meet the food needs of internal employees, but can also be sent to the food processing center in the safe zone in truckloads.

The processing center will produce rations with higher nutritional content, improving the food quality of people in the safe zone.

The potatoes harvested by Xia Qing in July have passed a 50-day dormancy period. After germination, cutting and sterilization, they can be sown this afternoon.

The early peas in shed No. 3-6 of the Ninth Center used for growing potatoes have been harvested, and the fields have been re-fertilized, watered and plowed. Standing in the shed, smelling the fragrance of the soil, looking at the flat fields and straight ridges, the farmers feel extremely comfortable and full of hope.

After technical instructor Zhang Tao checked the potato seeds and confirmed that they were suitable for planting, Mao Chuntai, together with the employees of the planting department, planted the cut potatoes with the buds facing upwards into the fertile and loose soil with a very solemn look.

Every employee knows that this batch of potato seeds is high-quality potato seeds cultivated by Director Xia in her territory with great effort using high-quality element soil. The content of harmful elements in these seeds is nearly two points lower than that of the potato seeds sold by the Safe Zone Planting Management Department and the Territory Management Department.

Such high-quality potato seeds are simply not available on the market!
The employees also knew that if managed properly and no unexpected disasters occurred, these four sheds could harvest 40,000 kilograms of potatoes before the snow hit.

During the natural disaster, food was extremely scarce, and the starving human survivors could not help but feel overwhelmed when they heard this number. So these potatoes were treasures, they were their eyes and their lives!

Xia Qing, who has the most experience in potato planting, inspected everyone's planting spacing, row spacing and depth. When inspecting from shed No. 3 to shed No. 6, the team leader in charge of shed No. 6, who was missing one eye, asked, "Director, should we buy Hui Si's potato-specific fertilizer?"

Xia Qing did not play it safe and gave a clear answer, "According to the current fertilization and management methods, our potato yield per mu can reach 10,000 kilograms, and there is no need to apply special fertilizers to accelerate production."

This team leader was a mechanized infantryman before he retired. Although he was quite strong, he had never farmed before, so he still didn't quite understand. "Director, 10,000 jin is indeed a lot, but it's also a good thing to increase the yield, right?"

Food is in short supply now, so an extra kilogram of yield is a good thing. Xia Qing explained in detail, "I did not find the stability test announcement of Huisi potato fertilizer on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture, which means that the stability of this fertilizer has yet to be tested. The aggressive evolution rate of our potatoes is as high as 5%, and the stability of most potatoes is less than two generations. If you use formula high-efficiency fertilizers with no guaranteed stability, even if the induction of production is successful, it will lead to a decline in potato quality, or even a red light."

In addition to this reason, Xia Qing has other considerations. "In addition, high-yield crops need to absorb more nutrients and water than ordinary crops, which accelerates the depletion of soil nutrients. After harvesting 10,000 kilograms of potatoes this time, we need to rotate to other medium-yield crops to let the land recover. In the long run, the benefits of inducing production are not high."

Now, the team leaders and employees in the shed understood and nodded repeatedly.

While everyone continued to work, Zhang Tao, who had just finished instructing the employees on how to cover the soil and sprinkler irrigation, came over and chatted with Xia Qing.

"What you just said is very correct. The current natural climate and plant characteristics are different from those before the natural disaster. Increasing production is important, but stability is even more important. We cannot artificially destroy the stability of the plants and increase the risk of planting in order to increase production. The focus of potato planting research at this stage is not to increase production, but to improve quality."

Xia Qing took the opportunity to ask, "Our potatoes are too unstable. Sister Tao, where should we start next?"

Zhang Tao provided her with ideas for improvement. "The Ninth Center does not have high-quality soil. To cultivate high-quality and stable potato seeds, we need to rely on the standard greenhouse in the No. 7 Territory and the high-quality terraces in your territory. You have done your best in controlling water quality. You can try using green light cow dung as base fertilizer for the next crop. Cow dung is a slow-release fertilizer and is more suitable as a base fertilizer for growing potatoes than chicken manure."

In order to ensure that the biggest secret of Territory No. 3 is not leaked, the batch of seed potatoes that Xia Qing sent to the Ninth Center, although harvested in the Gaoyi Element Terraces, were not irrigated with unpolluted spring water, but with filtered water.

The terraced fields are irrigated with pollution-free spring water, and only the optimized varieties are selected at the seedling stage. Of course, the potatoes grown from these optimized plants are now properly stored in Xia Qing's underground storage room and will be taken out for sowing next spring.

Now that Xia Qing has cows, she has one more high-quality fertilizer to use. "How much cow dung should I use per acre of land to grow potatoes?"

The more Zhang Tao interacted with Xia Qing, the more he could understand why Zhang San, who was narrow-minded and didn't like dealing with people, would have such a high tolerance for Xia Qing and be willing to take the time and energy to cultivate her.

Although Xia Qing's basic knowledge was poor, she devoted herself to farming, could endure loneliness, was not afraid of hard work, and was willing to work hard on breeding. What was even more rare was that she was now a dual-system advanced evolver and one of the best snipers in Huisan Base, but she was not arrogant at all. She continued to farm as she should and was willing to listen to other people's suggestions.

The Ninth Center is lucky to have such a manager.

Like Zhang Song, Zhang Tao also likes working with Xia Qing, so whatever Xia Qing asks her, she will teach her without reservation, because Zhang Tao also hopes to take root in this territory and do research here for a long time and peacefully.

Just as Zhang Tao was explaining to Xia Qing what nutrients potatoes need to supplement at different stages of growth, the intercom on Xia Qing's chest rang, "Director, Mr. Xiao Yu from Chonglian Group is outside the south gate of the center and wants to come in to visit you."

Xia Qing calmly pressed the intercom button and said, "Please invite him to my office."

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