The sealing test of the No. 2 planting base also took two days. Zhao Changxing connected the No. 2 planting base to the No. 1 base, bringing its internal air pressure to one atmosphere, and connected the energy source to ensure that its internal temperature and humidity remained stable.
After two days, after confirming that the sealing performance was good and could fully meet the requirements, the construction of the No. 2 planting base entered the next stage.
At the current stage, the framework has been built, similar to a "rough". Now, what needs to be done is the "decoration" of the interior.
This work is more tedious and precise. When Base No. 1 was built, Zhao Changxing spent most of his time on this. Sometimes, the details of the two interfaces not being aligned can take Zhao Changxing an entire afternoon. If a certain plane cannot be kept horizontal, it will take several hours or even a whole day to solve it.
It is foreseeable that this time the interior "decoration" work will be the same. But this time, Zhao Changxing no longer fought alone, but had six helpers.
First, the previously excavated earth was backfilled and evenly laid on the roof of the No. 2 planting base to make it act as a radiation protection layer. After that, a huge building with a length of 100 meters, a width of 100 meters, and a clear internal height of 3.5 meters was built. In the empty room, Zhao Changxing and six helpers took off their spacesuits for the first time.
There were piles of building materials on the ground, which looked very messy. Zhao Changxing took a deep breath and said, "Let's get started."
His voice caused echoes in the empty and sealed No. 2 Planting Base. Before the sound lingered, a total of seven people took various tools and plunged into a new stage of struggle.
In the planning, excluding the area occupied by corridors, walls, partitions, passages, etc., the total area of the No. 2 planting base of 10,000 square meters that can be used for planting is about 9,200 square meters.
As for how to allocate the 9,200 square meters of planting area, Zhao Changxing had a detailed discussion with the first generation of adults. In the end, it was unanimously determined that the first thing that needed to be ensured was the planting area of green storage corn.
Silage corn is an excellent feed. Its planting area is directly related to the growth of livestock, how much meat people can eat in the future, and the health of everyone.
At this stage, the amount of feed is seriously insufficient, resulting in the livestock and aquaculture workshop of Base No. 1 being able to operate at only 30% power, and the level of meat output has also been maintained at a low level for a long time, which is really not enough.
Think about it, a hot pot party can consume at least 30 kilograms of meat in one meal. How can the animals raised now eat it?
What's more, the 60 children in the third generation are also growing up, and their demand for meat is increasing day by day, so this must be taken into consideration in advance.
In the end, among the 9,200 square meters, people unanimously agreed to set aside 3,000 square meters for planting green storage corn. The growth cycle of green storage corn is shorter than that of normal corn. It can be planted 6 times a year. One round of planting can produce about 10 tons of feed, which is 60 tons a year. Together with some existing ones, it is enough to support livestock and aquatic products. The breeding workshop is operating at 100% power.
In addition to green storage corn, another more important category is staple food. The main staple foods are rice and wheat - potatoes are not considered.
There was rice and wheat, and no one wanted to eat potatoes. The same goes for sweet potatoes. Potatoes and sweet potatoes are mainly used to make starch, which can be used for industrial purposes or as feed, or to make some wide vermicelli and the like. If it is used directly as a staple food, Zhao Changxing thinks to himself that it is not that miserable.
Zhao Changxing has previously calculated that the output of Humanity Base No. 1 is enough to consume approximately 50 adults and dozens of children. Now, the second generation of children is about to reach adulthood - in fact, their appetite is no worse than that of adults. In this calculation, adults can be counted as 41 people. With the addition of 60 children, although the output of Base No. 1 can still be sustained, there is very little food that can be saved for storage. Some categories of food are even beyond our means. Fortunately, there are previous reserves in the storage area, which can temporarily support it.
Just seeing that some categories can only be sold out, and the number of items that can be saved and brought in is getting smaller and smaller, Zhao Changxing will always feel as painful as a knife cutting his own flesh.
Rice and wheat each received 2,000 square meters of planting area. These two crops can use a double-layer planting method to maximize the use of space, which is a planting area of 4,000 square meters each.
With 4 rounds of planting a year, wheat can produce about 3.5 tons, and 4 rounds is 14 tons. One round of rice can produce about 5 tons, which is 20 tons a year.
With this year's 34 tons - minus the loss of about 4 tons or the impact of accidents, diseases, etc., there are still 30 tons. There is a loss of about 30% each when wheat is ground into flour and rice is turned into rice. The total amount of flour and rice harvested in the end is 21 tons.
Based on the average daily consumption of 0.5 kilograms of staple food by an adult with sufficient non-staple food, the annual output of 21 tons is enough to feed 120 adults. What's more, the 30% loss, that is, bran, rice bran, etc. - about 9 tons in weight, are not thrown away directly. They are also excellent feed and will be turned into meat when fed to livestock. Become part of the human diet.
In general, the planting of rice and wheat in Planting Workshop No. 2 will greatly reduce the pressure on food demand from population growth. Based on the current population growth rate, Zhao Changxing will no longer have to worry about food shortages in at least 30 years.
The cultivation of three crops, green storage corn, rice and wheat, takes up 7,000 square meters of the No. 2 planting base. There is still 2,200 square meters of area available for use.
Vegetables will definitely not be considered. The vegetables produced in the vegetable growing area of Base No. 1 are enough for consumption. After all, this thing has high yield, takes up little space and grows quickly. At the current stage, uneaten vegetables are directly used as feed for livestock.
Among these areas, an area of 200 square meters has been divided, and it is planned to plant various fruit trees, such as apples, pears, grapes, bananas, etc., to enrich people's diet. Another 1,000 square meters is used to grow soybeans, with an annual output of about 4 tons.
The last 1,000 square meters left were used to grow some miscellaneous things, such as cotton, peanuts, rape, sesame, sunflower, sugar beet, sugar cane and so on.
Some people also put forward suggestions that the cotton planting area should be expanded to develop light industry, especially the cotton spinning industry. After all, the Fire spacecraft does not carry too many clothes, quilts and other supplies, and these things must be produced by ourselves. And at this stage, even if we let the new-born children pick up the old clothes worn by their older brothers and sisters to wear, the number of clothes is almost not enough.
Adults generally only have two sets of clothes, both of which are very worn. People are really looking forward to having some new clothes to wear.
But this request was cruelly rejected by Zhao Changxing. He believes that as long as all human activity areas have adequate temperature control facilities, there is no need for the thermal insulation function of clothing. Then only the beauty and body-covering functions are left. These two functions can be done with old clothes, so there is really no need to waste precious planting area at this stage.
Even if the cotton grown now is not used to make clothes, it is used for industrial purposes.
This makes both the first generation of young people, the second generation of teenagers, and even the third generation of children unhappy. There was no other way, so Zhao Changxing had to promise that he would build the No. 3 planting base as soon as possible in the future, and plant large quantities of cotton to develop light industry, which made people reluctantly accept it.
The internal construction of the No. 2 planting base has begun vigorously. With an area of 10,000 square meters, if Zhao Changxing were to do it by himself, it would be impossible to complete it in several years. But the addition of helpers shortened this time to a fraction of the original time.
In just one year, the internal construction has begun to take shape. By this time, the second group of humans had also reached adulthood and it was time to get to work.
Zhao Changxing and the first generation of humans welcomed them to Base No. 1 and assigned them their rooms. At this point, all 20 rooms in Base No. 1 are occupied, and there is even one more person who has no place to live.
Many people offered to let themselves go to the leisure and entertainment area or find a place in the industrial area and set aside a house for Zhao Changxing to live in, but Zhao Changxing firmly refused. He believes that as the oldest one among all people and the de facto "leader" of all humans at this moment, he has an obligation to set an example. So he chose to live in the leisure and entertainment area, letting everyone from the first and second generations live in the room.
With the addition of the second batch of 30 adult humans, the construction of the No. 2 planting base was once again accelerated, and all construction tasks were finally completed almost half a year ahead of schedule.
At this moment, each area has been completely divided, and various internal equipment, such as water supply, power supply, temperature control, humidity control, automated planting, maintenance, harvesting modules, etc., have all been installed. Various materials required for preparing the nutrient solution have also been collected, and the substrate used to fix the crop roots has been laid on top of the petri dish.
Followed by a total of 40 people, Zhao Changxing came to the No. 2 planting base with great joy. Standing in the corridor, Zhao Changxing solemnly pressed the start button. So the next moment, the temperature control and humidity control equipment started to operate, adjusting the different planting areas to different climates. The automatic planting equipment started to operate, sowing the seeds of many crops into the substrate.
"Soon, we will be able to harvest a lot of food..."
Zhao Changxing thought silently in his heart.
