Chapter 223: Plan, Intensively And Carefully
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Farming is a job that sounds simple but is difficult to execute perfectly.
This was especially true for large plots of land where, if there was no concept or understanding of farming in one’s heart, a person could easily be overcome by the feeling of not knowing where to start.
Sitting on the ground and feeling the warm sunlight above his head, Su Mo took out the psychic energy water in the storage space and took a sip.
Then he handed the remaining water bottle to Moore, who was also sitting next to him. After watching Moore drink it happily, Su Mo displayed a smile of “friendliness and kindness”.
“Moore, does your master treat you well?”
“Yes! Moore is eating well, drinking well, and is very happy.” After hearing Su Mo’s words, Moore patted his chest and stood up.
Oreo, who was lying next to him and warming herself in the sun, rolled her eyes in disdain toward Moore’s behavior.
What a bootlicking bear!
However, before Oreo could fully express this sentence, she found herself squealing in delight after hearing Su Mo’s next words.
“Since you’re eating so well, you have to properly play the role of a bear warrior. Here, take this hoe. You can plow the black soil land for us!”
Su Mo righteously handed the hoe to Moore and, looking at Moore’s stunned expression, Su Mo stretched out his hand and patted Moore’s furry back.
“Hurry up! If you do a good job, I’ll add an extra meal for you tonight!”
Hearing about the extra meal, Moore finally recovered. He excitedly picked up his hoe and started working fervently.
The job of turning the ground was simple and only required physical strength. For the bear warrior, as long as he imagined the black soil land to be an enemy standing in the way of his meal, he would easily be motivated.
Seeing Moore’s rapid work pace, Su Mo nodded in satisfaction. He began to separate the seeds and carefully arranged the planting plan.
Spring wheat was a regional crop, and not all places were suitable for planting spring wheat. Its different varieties and different regions often resulted in large yield gaps, and its average yield per mu was about 1000 catties. In China, only some areas can grow spring wheat.
As the soil in the wasteland had been moisturized by the snow, it had created an environment conducive to the growth of spring wheat.
Since this was his first planting experiment, Su Mo decided to plant a pound of seeds within a fixed area to study the relationship between the grade of the seeds and the output.
While Moore was still working hard to plow the land, he looked at the black soil that had been plowed.
After finding the most fertile piece of land, Su Mo began to work patiently.
In the training ground function provided by the system, unfortunately, there was no such bizarre training program as farming.
Therefore, Su Mo could only try to find his way around by summing up the experience of all the people commenting in the World Channel.
“The moisture level during the seeding process should not be too high, lest it affect the sowing process and number of seeds you can plant per mu of land.”
“The seeds should be mixed well, and each wheat seed should be thoroughly mixed with water to avoid moisture leakage.”
“After the seeding process is completed, the wheat needs to be air-dried a little.”
Sitting on the ground, he separated a catty of disaster-resistant wheat seeds and took out some psychic energy water and small pots to ensure that each seed on the ground could fully absorb the nutrients of the psychic energy water.
The sun in the wasteland was scorching hot. When the psychic energy water began to evaporate a little, Su Mo quickly poured all the seeds into the pot and started the second step of the process.
Before sowing the seeds, intensive plowing is required, which not only enhances the soil’s fertility, but also breaks in the bottom of the plowed soil in order to achieve the gold standard of being deep, fine, aerated, level, firm, and moist.
To put it in a nutshell, the soil should be tilled deeply and, after plowing, thoroughly raked until the soil is leveled and firm, leaving the top layer of the soil loose and the bottom layer moist.
It seemed easy enough when he first heard it, but Su Mo had a headache when he actually had to implement it himself.
Fortunately, this process did not require a high level of technical expertise. After spending some time, he reached the final step of the process.
As the primary food source of one-third of Earth’s population, wheat was not difficult to sow. One only needed to be careful in controlling the density of seeds sowed and the distance between each planted seed in order to ensure the healthy growth of the wheat.
“Phew, I am afraid that the grade of the harvested seeds will not be high this time around. Since I had to keep the overall process, strategy and method in mind the entire time, not even one-tenth of my focus was on the planting process itself. It would be difficult to rely solely on the buff to increase the grade of the seeds.”
Standing up, he looked at the leveled soil below. Su Mo then hesitantly pulled out a one-day coin from the storage space.
He flicked his fingertips, and the coin fell to the ground in front of him. The soil trembled and rumbled slightly, and then the coin began to disappear gradually and merged into the ground below him.
At the same time, the land seemed to be affected by some kind of magical force and began to change colors.
“The way time currency functions is peculiar. I have no clue about how it works!”
The game panel could not identify the black soil in front of him, so Su Mo focused his thoughts and summoned the system instead, which automatically appeared and began to scan the properties of the land in front of him.
After it finished scanning the ground in front of him, a surprising property display panel popped up.
[Black Soil Land – Crop Planting Field – Spring Wheat]
[Farmer: Su Mo]
[Planting area: 32 square meters]
[Cultivation category: Anti-disaster Star II]
[Crop grade: Good]
[Crop attributes: Able to resist low temperatures up to minus 20 degrees and resist high temperatures up to 40 degrees. Able to resist pests below the 5th degree, resist plant diseases below the 8th degree, is immune to the effects of nutrient competition from similar plants, is immune to…]
[Estimated crop yield: 1225 catties per mu (Not the final value. Affected by several man-made conditions, as well as natural factors such as weather.)]
[Estimated crop maturity duration: 82.3 days (Not the final value. Affected by a series of factors such as land, fertilizer, weather, etc.)]
[Comment: I can’t say that it is very bad, so I can only say that it is so-so.]
“Great.”
“I manage to grow good-quality crops even with this kind of haphazard planting method. I’m truly a genius at farming!”
The word “Good” on the property panel gave Su Mo a pleasant surprise, though he conveniently ignored the comment given by the system!
Who would have seen a first-time farmer cultivating good-quality crops!
Of course, it may just have been due to the addition of psychic energy water, but that was not the only factor involved.
The fertility of the black soil, seed model selection, weather, and having both the excavator and Moore plow the land…
It was only through the stacking effects of all these factors that such good-quality crops could be cultivated, despite Su Mo’s inexperience.
“Well, the multiplier for good-quality crops is 200 times, which means that in just over ten hours, the crops can immediately be harvested.”
“Without the assistance of machines and equipment to harvest the crops, we can only rely on manual labor. The time taken to harvest one mu of land is probably about 5 hours. Including rest time, a single person can only be responsible for the harvest of two mu of land, and will have to work for 11 hours without sleep.”
“If things are done in this manner, it would be too exhausting for more people, and the harvests from the subsequent days would be affected. In the best-case scenario, only one and a half rounds of harvesting can be carried out over the next two days…”
With a shovel, Su Mo quietly pondered the situation while standing in the field. He began to calculate the specific output of the excellent-quality crops boosted by the buff and bonus.
Including the time required for harvesting, and plowing the ground between planting cycles, it would be three days of arduous work. With the help of King Kong, two cycles of planting should not be a problem.
If the average harvest was 1000 catties per mu of land, with the 200 mu of farmland, his portion of the collected harvest would be about 280000 catties per cycle.
With that many catties of wheat, the task of processing the wheat into flour was not something Su Mo could undertake alone, even if he was given a few years.
He either had to find a way to build an automated production line, or he would have to take out 10% to 20% of the collected harvest and use that to continue hiring the refugees from the Candlelight Shelter to assist with the crop processing.
After calculation, the flour extraction rate of wheat is around 75%. After the 420,000 catties of spring wheat, harvested from two planting cycles, were processed into flour, only 84 tons would be left!
With the current appetite of humankind in the wasteland, a normal human could consume about one and a half catties of flour a day. If that person did more work, this amount would increase to two catties.
Everything was calculated according to the worst-case scenario. After some calculations, Su Mo tallied up the final value.
If the three-day welfare disaster’s crops were focused all on spring wheat, the flour produced from the processing of the wheat would be sufficient for 240 people to eat for a year.
Conversely, if the number of people in the shelter was around 10-15 people, it could last for eight to ten years.
This number sounded exaggerated but, after Su Mo’s thought things through, the option was immediately ruled out!
“Not enough! Even if the shelter does not need to be expanded in the future, this tiny amount of flour is insufficient!”
“The hard currency in future transactions will be food. No matter whether it is used to replace things or to travel long distances, the value of food will not depreciate in the long run.”
“Besides, I must set aside enough time to plant other things, otherwise, with a diet intake that consists solely of flour, after a year, everyone will be short of vitamins and die!”
Su Mo directly rejected the idea of only planting good-quality spring wheat. Looking at the field below, Su Mo simply sat down and began to slowly recover his energy.
There was only one chance. The types of crops he chooses to grow must be nutrient-rich, convenient, and simple to store, and the yield must not be too low.
Therefore, among all the crops, his final decision was to follow his original plan.
It consisted of four crops in total.
The first was to produce thousands of catties of the hunger-alleviation crop, spring wheat.
Secondly, he would grow cabbage, which was rich in carotene, vitamin B, vitamin C, crude fiber, protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and other trace elements.
Thirdly, soybeans, a high-quality vegetable protein source. It was very easy to preserve and had a shelf life of a few years.
Fourthly, carrots, which were known to have a medicinal value similar to small ginsengs. It protects the organs and tissues and prevents various diseases.
In addition to these four, it was necessary to plant a batch of cotton so that he could produce smokeless guncotton. He would save them for the mass production of ammunition in the future.
If there was additional time, Su Mo wanted to try planting apple seeds, that would grow in about three years, to see if they could grow fruit.
Finally, in the black soil land, Su Mo intended to purchase a large number of medicinal plant seeds to ensure that he had a large and abundant reserve of medical supplies in the shelter.
With so many crops waiting to be planted, he had to keep sight of the original goal. Choosing the more convenient good-quality seeds for planting would naturally waste a vital opportunity.
“All the crops must be upgraded to excellent-quality, with the 400 times multiplier, to ensure that my plan is carried out as scheduled!”
Confirming the plan, Su Mo now had a direction for the quality of the crops.
Sitting on the ground, Su Mo began to slowly reflect on possible improvements to his planting process earlier. At the same time, he began to simulate each step mentally to achieve the best possible result.
As his mind focused on the simulations, Su Mo spent hours in contemplation until the sun above his head had moved westward. Su Mo suddenly opened his eyes. He picked up the shovel and the high-yield wheat seed bag next to him. His eyes became extremely focused.
At the same time, the Mind Ring on his finger began to emit a misty light, allowing Su Mo to enter a state of heightened concentration!
