1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 102 Seeds and Bamboo Poles (Sorry, I forgot to mention the update time adjustment: 7 am, 6 pm.)
"Wang Wang~"

In the early morning after the rain, the air in the vegetable field was extremely fresh. A man and two dogs stood in front of the loofah vines. The two puppies barked twice very smartly.

"Ruzi can be taught."

Chen Jiazhi smiled and looked at the loofah vines in front of him.

The vine's bark gradually lost its greenish hue, leaving only two or three inches of fresh green at the top. However, the new shoots were no longer able to cling upwards. The melons left for seed had only been unpicked for two days, but they were already showing signs of woodiness, just like a person slowly aging after middle age.
He peered inside again, his eyebrows raised. On the body of a loofah plant, he saw brown spots, like age spots, covering its body and making its ridges more jagged.

Is this a disease?
Wearing rain boots, Chen Jiazhi took two steps inside, ignoring the water droplets from the vines dripping onto his body.

He saw brown round spots on the bodies of several loofahs in succession.

Looking at the vines now, not only are they old, but the mature leaves also have nearly circular brown spots.

anthrax.

The disease is most likely to occur under high temperature and high humidity conditions.

A few days ago, I only sprayed pesticides on young seedlings such as Chinese cabbage, but ignored loofah and bitter melon.

I guess the bitter melon is also infected.

Now the moisture on the leaves has not dried up yet, and I don’t know when it will dry up, so there is no way to prevent and control it.

Chen Jiazhi smiled bitterly and said, "It's really full of disasters."

This crop of loofahs and bitter melons were transplanted before he was reborn.

April has been rainy and hot.
The rainstorm at the end of May directly flooded the fields. After we finally resumed picking, the Dragon Boat Rain in June came again.
He has stumbled his way to where he is today, and was then struck by anthrax, suffering even more than Daguqing.

Rain Boots continued walking in the muddy ditch, and the two puppies followed in, their legs covered in mud.

Chen Jiazhi looked at the loofahs infected with disease spots and recalled the records in his notebook.

Picking begins on May 5th and ends on June 20th.

A total of 1461 kilograms of loofah were harvested, with an income of 1884 yuan; 1124 kilograms of bitter melon were harvested, with an income of 1684 yuan.

They are all 0.25 acres in area.

If it were placed in later generations, this output would be unsatisfactory and not be presentable.

But at present, the production output is second to none, relying on daily management techniques such as pest control, water and fertilizer, and pollination.

All that is missing are seeds and facilities.

So he wanted to save seeds, and also aimed to breed, purify and rejuvenate, or cultivate better seeds.

Unfortunately, my luck is not very good. It is hard to predict how many seeds this crop of loofah and bitter melon can produce.

After walking a few more steps, Chen Jiazhi stopped.

In front of him was a loofah with edges as strong as bones. He looked at the melon carefully to make sure there was no trace of anthrax.

This was the melon he had specially reserved for his son, hoping that his son would be motivated and strong.

"It's really a good melon, very powerful. I have to keep holding on."

After seeing this melon, he no longer planned to spray pesticides. Perhaps after going through hardships, it could remain the same as before and produce good seeds.

After walking a few more steps, he saw the melon that Li Xiu had specially left, and there was no sign of anthrax.

He smiled and looked down at the short black and white dog that was not even as tall as the old branches of the vine.

"Remember these two melons, watch them carefully and don't let anyone steal them."

"Wang Wang~"

I don’t know if he understood or not, he just kept shouting.

After leaving the loofah field, we came to the bitter melon vines. There was the same anthracnose, but there were also some melons that were intact.

I don't plan to spray anymore.

He didn't know whether his breeding method was right or not, he just wanted to give it a try.

Then he walked towards the field where he had sown seeds two days ago. The road was very slippery and he was wearing anti-slip rain boots, but the two dogs were not. They fell one after another without paying attention. The white puppy even fell into a ditch. There was no water in the ditch, but when it got up, it had turned into a mud puppy.

But what is strange is that after the two dogs fell, they did not scream in panic. Instead, they immediately climbed up like normal dogs, showing the demeanor of generals.

There were water droplets hanging on the sunshade net. When it was gently peeled off, the dark brown soil formed by the mixture of surface manure humus and red soil was revealed.

The soil is moist but not compacted, and you have to look very carefully to find the seeds on the surface or in the cracks of the soil.

The roots are taking root underground.

This is choy sum.

The kale and mustard greens on the other side are just turning white.

Without soaking the seeds, germination and rooting will be slower, but as long as they are in the ground, it is better than not sowing.

Looking at each plot, it's time to plant the cowpeas. The choy sum I planted at 5:30 is now 15 or 16 centimeters tall. The broccoli and kale in the seedling tray have also grown true leaves, in addition to the two cotyledons.
Field inspections are also done day after day.

Chen Jiazhi did not feel bored. The changes every day seemed very subtle, but it was precisely in the subtle changes that one could detect abnormalities.

The work that was not done when it rained must be made up when the weather clears up.

Ao Dehai and Ao Deliang's families had started setting up the frame early, and they still needed a lot of bamboo poles. Qi Yongfeng and Huang Juan also came out to thin out the seedlings.

He talked to the three families separately, arranged work tasks, and communicated some details.

Every time this happened, he would feel lucky to be able to hire such a good farmhand.

In this industry, it is difficult to have standards for production management, and passive resistance is a common phenomenon.

When you hire a long-term worker, it means you are working for them.

Because you have to pay each person thousands or tens of thousands of dollars every year, and it is hard to say whether what he does is worth that salary.

If these long-term workers are fellow villagers or relatives, it may be more troublesome.

In his previous life, Brother Yi didn't save much money. One reason was that he had a permanent employee, a fellow villager, and friends and relatives. It also had something to do with the incentive system; bosses generally didn't give commissions.

Of course, ordinary farmhands are not qualified.

But Chen Jiazhi feels that the three couples under his command are fully worthy of this encouragement.

Therefore, he has no plans to change for the time being, and will only recruit temporary workers.

After communicating with Ao Deliang and Qi Yongfeng, Chen Jiazhi finally found Ao Dehai and Zhao Yu.

"We'll reduce the amount today to 260 kilograms of premium choy sum and 440 kilograms of regular choy sum. Should we also collect them together with Deliang and the others?"

Ao Dehai nodded: "Well, I'm a little overwhelmed in the fields. The rain will delay the land preparation again, which may delay the subsequent sowing."

Ao Dehai and Zhao Yu held the bamboo poles, with a look of anxiety on their faces.

Now all the vacant land is in their hands, but none of it is suitable for sowing, and the land that is plowed is hardened by rain.

If they fail to deliver the food later, the responsibility lies with them.

Chen Jiazhi: "It's okay. I plan to hire four temporary workers. If there's no time to sow seeds later, we can just transplant the Chinese cabbage seedlings directly onto the existing beds and clean up the remaining roots."

The two were surprised for a moment. They didn't expect there was such a remedy.

Zhao Yu asked, "Can the choy sum seedlings survive transplanting?"

Chen Jiazhi: "Just be careful when digging up and transplanting the seedlings, and there will be no problem."

Ao Dehai thought for a moment and then said, "Then transplanting after the rain is best. The survival rate is higher. The next few days are suitable."

Chen Jiazhi looked at him with appreciation and said, "Well, transplant the plants sooner rather than later. Try to transplant more plants this time~"

Ao Dehai: "Okay, we'll set up the racks in the mornings and clean up the vegetable roots. We can use the land directly when we need to transplant."

"Okay, let's build the frame first, and then I'll go buy some bamboo poles."

"By the way, if you have any suitable people, you can recommend them to me. Preferably a careful female worker whose job is to thin out the seedlings, plant them, and weed."

Zhao Yu pondered for a moment: "Boss Chen, how is this salary calculated?"

"I work eight hours a day and get eight yuan a day. Overtime is paid."

It’s not that he doesn’t want to pay more, but the wages are like this. The basic salary of Ao Dehai and others is also 8 yuan a day.

After a pause, Chen Jiazhi continued, "After this month, we may increase the high temperature allowance as appropriate, and you will also receive it."

The two were slightly delighted, and Zhao Yu also said, "I happen to know two families who are looking for work. I'll go ask them, but I can't guarantee they'll come."

Chen Jiazhi didn't expect that there was still hope. He felt that Zhao Yu was reliable.

After arranging the work, Chen Jiazhi walked back.

After checking out the seeds of loofah and bitter melon in the morning, he planned to go back and check out the seeds of big-bone green melon.

The black and white paparazzi also seemed to know that the field patrol was over, and changed their habit of walking, stopping and looking as they walked, and disappeared in a flash.

After returning home, Chen Jiazhi took out a dark red plastic basin from under the iron bed. The basin was filled with about 3 kilograms of large-grained green tea seeds that he had harvested earlier.

He grabbed a handful of nearly round seeds, which felt hard to the touch and had thick seed coats. Most of them were dark brown, but some were variegated and of varying sizes.

He found a piece of cloth and spread it on the ground. Chen Jiazhi poured all the seeds on the cloth, spread them out thinly, and began to sift them.

Remove impurities and inferior seeds, leaving only seeds with full grains, uniform size and intact seed coats.

In the end, two kilograms of seeds were selected.

But he plans to continue breeding.

In the south, water spinach can be planted all year round, and it can still be planted now.

However, there is no prepared land at the moment, so the seeds have to be stored again.

Then he rode his bike out to buy bamboo poles.

There are only more than ten days left before the typhoon arrives.

To prevent typhoons, Chen Jiazhi plans to use a double-row cross-type herringbone frame.

One bamboo pole is needed for each seedling, and horizontal bars are needed at the intersections. One acre of land requires 3500 bamboo poles, which is a lot, but they are sturdy.

He has a total of 2.3 acres of cowpeas and needs a total of 8050 peas, so he probably needs to buy another 7000.

There are still large tracts of farmland in Dongxiang Village, with endless rice fields, vegetables everywhere, and canals connecting everywhere.

A long bamboo branch or a long wooden stick has endless uses in the vast countryside.

Villagers build racks out of bamboo branches or wooden sticks to dry clothes, vegetables, and fish.

Of course, there are also bamboo racks in the vegetable fields, on which are hung loofahs, beans, bitter melons, winter melons, and wax gourds.
The man who sells bamboo branches on the roadside in the market sees that the villagers need these branches to build racks, so he goes out early, rides his 28-inch bicycle, goes to the distant mountains to cut bamboo branches, and then sells them here to earn a meager income.

In his previous life, Chen Jiazhi had also gone to cut wood. The journey was long and he had to bring food with him.

So he came early today.

There were not many people selling bamboo poles at the stalls, and each person only had a few bundles at most, which would not be enough if you bought them all.

So he went to the supply and marketing cooperative to ask the price, which was 6 cents per stick, and then turned around and left.

All agricultural inputs are rising in price.

Especially the supply and marketing cooperatives, the monopoly sales left over from the planned economy made the price of bamboo poles ridiculously expensive.

If the price of cowpeas is normal, anyone who grows cowpeas will lose money.

Fortunately, there are still men setting up stalls on the roadside, and the bamboo poles are unprocessed, which makes them cheap.

Chen Jiazhi not only bought all the bamboo poles in one go, but also asked them to go to the mountains to cut down the remaining bamboo poles and send them to him.

Seven thousand bamboo poles cost him more than two thousand yuan.

(End of this chapter)