In early March of the Gregorian calendar, thirty steel-wood greenhouses covered with white plastic sheets rose up on a large open field next to the cultivated land in Xingkai Lake No. 2 Village. Each of these greenhouses is fifty meters long, eight meters wide and more than two meters high, and is used for rice seedling cultivation.
As the greenhouse was about to be completed, a "work team" composed of more than 20 people from Beihai Town Technical School also came.
There are currently more than 70 households in Xingkaihu Village No. 2, with a population of more than 300; a dozen of them were newly allocated at the beginning of this year. Thirty households of old villagers were selected to grow rice, which corresponded to the thirty greenhouses. Each greenhouse can grow fifty acres of rice through seedling cultivation.
However, even though the villagers are grateful to Zhao Xin and the village chief Zhu Dagui takes the lead, not every family is willing to grow rice. The farmers from Henan used to grow sorghum. They have just become accustomed to eating white flour in the two years since they came to Beihai Town. Everyone is still a little unsure about the unfamiliar rice.
"Have you heard? Our village will switch to rice cultivation this year."
"Ah! Why don't we plant good wheat anymore?"
"Rice is also a good thing."
"It's so cold here, and rice can only be grown in the south."
"That's right! What should I do if I lose the seed?"
"What's so delicious about that thing? I don't tell you when I'm not eating it. I take one bite and my mouth is full."
On the third day after the arrival of the work team, Zhu Dagui held a meeting in the courtyard of the village office and summoned all the families of the twenty-nine households he had selected.
People came one after another. Not only those twenty-nine households, but other families who had nothing to do also came to join in the fun.
In the empty field where the three brothers Chen Jishan and Chai Rugui competed, there were more than a dozen benches scattered around, which could not accommodate the many people. So the men squatted together in the sun, smoking and chatting, or squatting under the window sill to play chess with a paper chessboard, with a few helpers standing nearby; the women were either cleaning the soles of their shoes or mending them. Wearing clothes, talking about Zhang's family, Li's family and other gossips. Seven or eight little kids aged five or six were running in and out of the courtyard, laughing and playing hide-and-seek among the crowds. A group of sparrows were chirping on the roof and wall.
Everyone hopes to tell them early and go home early. Let’s not talk about whether we are busy with other things when we go home. Every day at nine o’clock in the morning, the loudspeakers in the village will start broadcasting dramas and storytelling. Both adults and children love to listen; this can be regarded as the most popular entertainment project in the winter under the rule of Beihai Town.
At present, gambling is not allowed in Beihai Town except for the three days of the New Year. The specific measures are that whistleblowers will be rewarded, and those who gather to gamble will be fined with confiscation of gambling capital for the first time, and fifty North Sea dollars for the second time; those who refuse to correct their mistakes for the third time will have their cultivated land confiscated, and you can go play on Bitter Leaf Island!
"Uncle Shuan, when the work team entered the village yesterday, I saw that Captain Xiao is just like a farmer. He eats the car!"
"I also asked the village chief yesterday. He was originally a farmer. General! It's just that the land is better than that of ordinary people, so he was promoted to captain."
"Commissioner! Hehe, Uncle Shuan, how about I become the captain of the work team in the future?"
"Come on! Just save it! Just use this piece of material and learn all the five hundred characters first before talking about it."
"We have already recognized three hundred. At most, half a year will be enough! I will move!"
The newly assigned villagers from Hebei next to him were stunned for a moment, their eyes widened. One of them touched Liu Quanfu's arm and said, "Brother Liu, are you literate?"
"Why, don't you believe it?"
“Don’t dare, don’t dare, you are already literate, why are you still farming?”
Liu Quanfu glanced at Liu Laoshuan, who was staring at him to prevent him from stealing the chess pieces, so he laughed and said: "Literate is for better farming."
When Liu Laoshuan saw that he had won the chess game, he was in a good mood. He held a dry pipe in his mouth and said to the newcomers: "Young students, you will gradually know that everyone in Beihai Town is literate. It's just you, uncle, and me." I also know a hundred or ten characters."
"..."
On the other side, several old residents gathered around a Hezhe man in his forties who was sitting on a bench. This man was talking about tigers.
"Amba in the forest are not afraid of fire, and they especially like to eat dogs." The "Amba" in his mouth is the Hezhe people's name for tigers. At this time, everyone was listening attentively, and even the ears of the new residents perked up.
"That day, it was eerily quiet at night. The forest was so quiet that it was scary. There was no wind at all, and even the leaves were not moving. From a distance, it sounded like someone was snoring in the forest. Everyone had been busy all day, and they all fell asleep. , I sat by the fire and kept vigil, and the two dogs next to me suddenly started whining, as if they were frightened by something.
After about a meal, I heard the sound of stones rolling down from the left, as if someone had come down from the shore and went to the river. The two dogs somehow got into the shack all at once and couldn't bark no matter how hard they barked. Immediately afterwards, the stones in the forest were stepped on and rattled. Just when I said I wanted to touch the bow and arrow, I saw a long black shadow on the edge of the river beach, which scared me so much that I felt cold all over! "
At this time, a villager nearby asked hurriedly: "What happened next?"
"Later I realized that Amba planned to eat my two dogs."
"Don't interrupt! Tell me quickly, what happened next?"
Nahezhe continued: "I didn't even dare to move. Amba wanted to go to the stream, but he didn't want to get his paws wet, so he stretched out his tiger paws to test on the rocks, but he still missed the mark. Let me tell you , if you encounter Amba in the forest, as long as you are downwind, you must not move. Amba will be fine if he can't smell you.
I really wanted to run at that moment, but when I thought there were people in the shack behind me, I screamed with all my strength. Now everyone woke up and Amba was also scared. The guy let out a loud roar as if snoring, jumped into the water, and soon climbed up the other side and went into the woods. "
"It's so suspenseful!" The surrounding villagers exclaimed in admiration, as if they had experienced it themselves.
At this time, Zhu Dagui saw that all the twenty-nine households were basically here, so he stood up from the bench, coughed twice, and said to everyone: "Be quiet! Quanfu, stop playing chess! Everyone listen first Let me say a few words! This time the superiors sent a work team down, everyone knows what it is for, right?"
At this time, an old lady holding the soles of her shoes said, "Dagui, just hurry up and say it. We'll be waiting to hear the show later."
Zhu Dagui glared at the old lady and continued: "If you ask me, this rice is a good thing. The banner men in the capital like to eat rice most, and they transport it to the capital one by one every year. The boss can handle this job They are placed in our village because they think highly of us. This year, including my family, there are only thirty households in total, so we can’t let it get ruined by doing errands! King Zhao specially asked someone to tell me that when the autumn harvest harvests food, he I will come to our village again and try the new rice!"
After that, Zhu Dagui pointed to the man next to him and said: "This is Captain Xiao who was sent to our village from above to teach us how to grow rice. Let him say a few words to you guys."
Following his introduction, a man who was nearly forty years old stood up next to him. He had a slight beard on his chin and a cotton hat on his head. He was dressed in a gray cotton-padded jacket, wearing a pair of cloth shoes with thousand-layer soles and trousers with cloth belts. After pricking it, it looks very clean and neat, no different from an ordinary crop handle.
"My surname is Xiao, and my name is Xiao Zhanwu. Like everyone else, I am also from Henan. This time, I was sent to bring students to our second village to teach everyone how to grow rice..."
Next, Xiao Zhanwu told everyone what the greenhouses outside the village were used for and why they were used. He didn't have any nonsense and finished his speech in less than a minute.
When Zhu Dagui saw that there was no reaction from the people below, he scolded: "Everyone is making a fool of himself! Captain Xiao is here to help us. Hey, hey, hey!"
There was sparse applause for a while and then fell silent.
The only thing I’m listening to at this point is, why do we need to change rice this year? "
Zhu Dagui glared and said: "Cui Laowu, how dare you not listen to what the superiors say? You have only had enough food for two years, and you have forgotten your roots?"
"It's not about forgetting your roots. I just want to ask, why don't you go to the first village or the third village and insist on trial planting in our second village?"
As soon as he said this, he immediately received a response from most of the old villagers, while the newcomers leaned against the wall without speaking.
"It's just that when I was fleeing from famine, I ate rice from Hubei, and it was not delicious at all."
Zhu Dagui scolded: "You know nothing! After eating two meals of brown rice, you think all rice in the world is the same? Look at what you are capable of!"
Xiao Zhanwu said quickly: "Our place is different from Hubei. Take your second village, for example, it belongs to the Sanjiang Plain, the terrain is flat, and it is the third largest black soil belt in the world. The soil is fertile. If you grow rice here, it will definitely taste better than in Hubei." .....”
Everyone listened to what he said, and his aura was like that of a primary school teacher. Their questioning voices couldn't help but weaken, and they all listened to his explanation attentively.
Xiao Zhanwu explained to the villagers in the second village that it does not mean that all rice can be grown if the soil is fertile. For example, hillside land is not suitable and the cost of transformation is too high. If the water conservancy facilities and transportation conditions in the plain fields cannot keep up, they have to plant wheat or sugar beets for two years.
Chen Qingsong discovered this person last year when he went to inspect farmland water conservancy. Not only was he a good farmer, but he also loved to use his brain. He always had to figure out the farming methods taught by the civil affairs department.
After the initial conversation, Chen Qingsong felt that this person was a promising talent, so he asked him to take literacy classes at the technical school after the autumn harvest. He also personally taught him professional knowledge such as rice seedling cultivation, field management, and how to build farmland and water conservancy. It can be regarded as a gift from everyone.
After a winter of study, Xiao Zhanwu felt that he had benefited a lot. He never thought that there was so much knowledge in farming. After the autumn harvest last year, Chen Qingsong asked him to come to the technical school again, and combined his experience in the fields to give lectures to a group of boys aged fourteen or fifteen, and the results were very good.
So starting from this year, when Chen Qingsong decided to launch a rice planting plan in several villages under Beihai Town, he ordered General Xiao Zhanwu to bring his students down to teach rice cultivation techniques. The salary offered to him is fifty North Sea dollars per month, which is regarded as the level of a senior teacher.
As for Xiao Zhanwu's own fifty acres of land, it has been temporarily taken over by the civil administration of Beihai Town. The takeover fee is 40% of the harvest. He doesn't have to worry about it from sowing to harvesting. He can just wait for the grain to be distributed.
After a mobilization meeting was held, the whole village unified their thinking and understanding, so under his leadership, thirty households of villagers began preparations from the next day.
The first thing Xiao Zhanwu had to do was to transform the land of those thirty households into rice fields. He first called in the team responsible for digging wells from the agricultural machinery team. After some measurements, he determined the location of the wells at the highest point of each property. Because the Second Village is close to Xingkai Lake, the groundwater resources are very rich. If you dig down seven or eight meters, the water will come out.
This shocked the whole village. why? Dry land was turned into irrigated land, and it suddenly became good farmland.
Since ancient times, the most expensive item in land transactions is irrigated land. In the Qing Dynasty, an acre of irrigated land in the north cost more than thirty taels of silver, while an acre of land without a well cost only ten taels of silver. Do the math. Fifty acres have become irrigated land. This is a big industry.
Although Beihai Town’s land policy prohibits buying and selling, the land is owned by the state. But I can’t stand the farmers who don’t think so. What if it changes one day?
For this reason, those farmers who were unwilling to grow rice immediately regretted it and pestered Xiao Zhanwu every day to join the rice planting plan. But Xiao Zhanwu had no choice. There were only thirty greenhouses built in total. If he wanted to increase the cultivated land, he would have to add more greenhouses.
Besides, the well-drilling team's tasks have already been fully arranged, and there is no time to dig wells for others. So he had no choice but to comfort him by saying, next year, next year you can sign up again.
After the well is dug, a sunbathing pool should be surrounded. The size of the pool should be increased or decreased appropriately according to the area of the paddy field. If it is too small, it will not be conducive to mechanized operations. The larger the pond, the more convenient it is for transplanting rice seedlings, raking the ground, and draining water, and the land utilization rate is also high.
After that, the direction of the main water channel must be determined based on the terrain, not only to facilitate irrigation, but also to consider drainage issues. This will save you a lot of trouble in future field management.
After the main water channel is completed, the pond ridge must be straightened. This is the so-called "field ridge". According to the terrain, the fewer ridges, the better. When draining water, drain it at the opening of the main drain to avoid having to walk more and making management easier.
At this time, the medium-sized tractors of the agricultural machinery team also entered the site and began to level the land. The soil from high places should be scraped down to the ground, and the entire land should be scraped as flat as possible, and then the soil should be plowed and prepared. Large agricultural machinery cannot be used for land preparation in rice fields, mainly because the ruts of the rake are difficult to smooth out, which affects the quality of rice transplanting.
Time has quietly arrived in the middle of March in the Gregorian calendar. At this time, the Civil Affairs Department has shipped over 30 seed drills and soil covering machines, as well as a large number of seedling trays.
Seeders and soil covering machines have no technical difficulties and do not require electricity, so they are extremely easy to copy. The same cannot be said for the seedling tray. It is made of PVC and uses a large amount. If it is made of wood or iron, it will not be very breathable and water-permeable.
The outer Northeast belongs to the temperate and cold zone. If you want to grow rice, you must go through several stages such as seedling cultivation in greenhouses, transplanting, cultivation management, and harvesting. The most important thing is to cultivate the rice well.
The rice seeds provided by the Civil Affairs Bureau this time were specially ordered by Zhao Xin. Travelers all agree that Wuchang rice is delicious, but most people don't know that Wuchang rice is just a place name. The rice variety is actually called "Daohuaxiang No. 2" and the seeds are called "Wuyoudao 4".
The first thing Xiao Zhanwu took the farmers to do was to prepare seedbed soil. Because the land had been plowed after last year's autumn harvest and then rotated twice with a rotary tiller, the soil in the field became very loose after the snow melted and the sun dried. The soil taken is also sieved to make it more absorbent and breathable. The sifted soil is spread flatly into the seedling tray and watered twice before sowing.
By the end of March, the formal work of raising seedlings began. So Xiao Zhanwu took the students and started giving them step-by-step instructions, making sure not to waste a grain of food.
The first thing the villagers have to do is to dry the seeds. They dry the seeds for seven or eight hours from morning to afternoon, and only two or three days are enough. This can enhance the water permeability and air permeability of the seeds, improve the germination rate, make the seeds germinate neatly, make the seedlings strong, and also have the effect of sterilization and disease prevention.
The sun-dried seeds should be soaked in salt water to remove empty kernels, grass seeds and impurities. When the second village was building the greenhouse, several large cement ponds were built nearby for soaking seeds.
The students in the technical school hold a thermometer every day and measure it here and there. This is because the seed soaking time depends on the water temperature. Generally, it takes 5-6 days when the water temperature is 15°C, and 7-8 days when the water temperature is 10°C.
The concentration of salt water is required to be between 1.10 and 1.13. Xiao Zhanwu taught everyone a way to identify whether the concentration of salt water is appropriate, which is to find a raw egg and put it into the water. If it can reveal the size of a 1-dime Beihai coin, it is ok.
After that, the seeds need to be disinfected. The seed soaking spirit and badan raw powder used were both bought by Zhao Xin when he bought the seeds. The disinfected seeds must be stirred with a seed coating agent before sowing to increase yield.
It is almost mid-April in the Gregorian calendar, when the temperature reaches above 5℃, sowing can be carried out. When sowing, layer seeds and soil until the entire greenhouse is filled with seedling trays, leaving only a narrow channel in the middle.
This step is not over yet. Pay attention to the temperature, moisture, nutrients and pH of the bed soil in the greenhouse, and maintain ventilation at all times. You still have to transplant the rice seedlings in a month, and then you have to weed, topdress, and irrigate...
It was only then that the farmers in Xingkaihu No. 2 Village realized that growing rice was much more complicated than growing wheat. No wonder the superiors sent a special work team.
I just don’t know how much kilograms of rice can be produced per acre. Is it delicious?
