Chapter 149 Solving Pests: Preparing Insecticides

Upon landing in the wheat field, Shu Xin immediately saw the crawling and flying insects that Peng Peng'an had mentioned—the leaves and stalks of the golden wheat were densely covered with tiny aphids.

"It should be aphids, right?" Shu Xin wasn't really sure. A common pest of wheat is the wheat aphid, and these insects did look quite like the aphids she remembered. However, the aphids she had seen were all green, while the insects on the golden wheat were grayish-black.

As for the small flying insects in the air, they look to be the same kind as the aphids crawling on wheat stalks, except that they have grown translucent wings and their body color has changed from gray-black to gray-yellow.

“These are mealworms, Your Highness. When wheat grows well, it attracts mealworms,” Nonoli, who had come along, said.

Pengpengan, who also landed from the sky, looked disgusted: "How come I didn't know wheat could get infested with worms!"

Nono gave him a speechless look: "That's because the civilians will clean up in time."

These tiny insects, which the flower fairies call wheat worms, swarm together on the wheat. They not only suck the sap of the wheat, but also consume the magic in the air. Wheat infected with wheat worms will have yellow and dry leaves and will stop growing.

The more Shu Xin listened, the more she felt that this was an alternate world version of aphids.

Whether they were flower fairies, slaves, or commoners, they were all flying around in the wheat field, busy catching insects.

Shu Xin had always known that the flower fairies dealt with pests by catching them with their bare hands. Now, looking at them, she was somewhat relieved to find that the flower fairies of the Land of Sin were all using the magic wands that had been distributed. In particular, the flower fairy slaves who had participated in the making of the grass and fruit glass furniture were wielding their magic wands, swiftly crushing and cutting the aphids into pieces. It had to be said that this was much more efficient than catching the insects with their bare hands.

However, many flower fairies still didn't get the production magic wand, so they would pick the insects off the wheat leaves and stalks and then bury them in the soil.

Shu Xin asked Nuonuo Li and learned that this was a common method for dealing with wheat weevils.

Generally, this type of mealworm disease is easy to treat. If there are only a few mealworms, you can simply catch them and bury them in the soil, and they will die quickly. If there are many mealworms, you can remove the leaves that are infested with mealworms and bury them in the soil as well. If there are a lot of mealworms, you can cut down the wheat plant that is infested with mealworms and bury the whole plant in the soil, and then there will be no more mealworms.

The second situation is the current state of the Land of Sin. Because the wheat was planted too much and too densely, the wheat weevils came in large numbers, and even bred flying wheat weevils. At first, only the golden honey wheat was infested with wheat weevils, which the flower fairies could handle. But when the flying wheat weevils appeared, the pest infestation spread rapidly, and the flower fairies quickly reported it to their superiors.

This is also because there are too many wheat worms in the Sinful Lands, and the usual methods of dealing with them are no longer applicable.

In fact, apart from Shu Xin, no other lord of the territory would sow wheat on such a large scale. The large amount of wheat seeds that Shu Xin and her group bought from the wheat market was actually enough for the whole year, but Shu Xin planted it all at once. The flower fairies had a kind of blind trust in the flower fairy, so they sowed all the seeds for the year into the ground.

It was at this time that Shu Xin learned about this from Nuonuo Li and Peng Peng An. She didn't feel regretful, after all, the population of the Land of Sin was growing very fast. She just felt that she had thought farming was too simple and should have done a good job of preventing and controlling pests and diseases in advance. Otherwise, she wouldn't have realized that something bad was going to happen when the time came.

"Should we shoo the gray birds over to eat the mealworms?" Pengpengan asked.

Shu Xin shook her head. She remembered that the gray birds ate not only insects but also leaves. She turned to look at the Tree of Life, which was now large enough to cover the entire sky above her: "I'll go ask the Tree of Life. It will have a solution."

When Shu Xin sought help from the Tree of Life, she also asked why the wheat was infested with mealworms. After providing a pesticide formula, the Tree of Life also gave an answer: it was due to insufficient irrigation.

Golden honey wheat is very attractive to mealworms because of its high magical content. However, golden honey wheat has a high water requirement. Mealworm eggs are always present in the soil, but if the soil is thoroughly watered, the number of mealworm eggs that can hatch will be greatly reduced.

Shu Xin thought that with so many irrigation ditches in the Golden Honey Wheat field, the irrigation frequency was already high enough. However, she did not expect that it still could not meet the water demand of the Golden Honey Wheat. This led to the rampant reproduction of wheat weevils, which even grew wings and spread directly to the surrounding fields.

The magical content of bitter wheat is even higher than that of golden honey wheat, yet there wasn't a single wheat weevil in the wheat field. Shu Xin wasn't too surprised. In her memory, bitter plants, such as the chinaberry tree, could prevent and repel insects, and the insecticide given by the Tree of Life did indeed use the leaves of bitter wheat.

...Aside from being bitter, bitter wheat really has no flaws!

The insecticide formula provided by the Tree of Life was quite peculiar. Shu Xin couldn't understand its working principle at all, but that didn't stop her from following it.

The insecticide formula is quite complicated. First, you need to catch a few wheatworms and put them into a small amount of spring water from the Sun Spring. Then, add a small amount of salt powder and magic powder, stir well, add crushed bitter wheat leaves, then add a small amount of crushed white clay, stir well again, and finally add a trace amount of venom from the Demon Clan. The insecticide is then ready.

This formula is quite magical. Shu Xin guessed that the reason why Xiao Shui's venom was used was probably because Xiao Shui's prototype was a kind of water spider, and the venom had an insecticidal effect. How should I put it, it's actually quite scientific.

Xiao Shui didn't come to the surface to rent a treehouse from the flower fairy. She was a demon who preferred to live in underground caves. Because she wasn't very strong, she couldn't slack off at work. When Shu Xin found her in the underground city, she was diligently harvesting aquatic plants. Many of the algae growing in the underground lake were edible, and the demons would take care of them, as this was one of their food sources.

After explaining the situation to Xiaoshui, she nodded shyly and gave the Flower Fairy a drop of her venom.

After handing over the drop of venom along with the insecticide formula to her two subordinates and instructing them to find someone to prepare it, Shu Xin rolled up her sleeves and joined the flower fairies' insect-killing team.

The insecticide formulation still needs some time, but the wheat weevils are multiplying faster and faster, and there are more and more flying insects in the air. Naturally, the more insects you kill, the more leaves you can save. Shu Xin waved her magic wand and began a killing spree.

Sensent and Lorot were working together to catch the wheat weevils on the wheat. One brother caught them, and the other buried them. They quickly cleared all the wheat weevils off a stalk of wheat and then flew to the next stalk.

The tiny wheat worms that seemed insignificant to the flower fairies were not small to the flower fairies who were only a dozen centimeters tall. Sensen grabbed a wheat worm and was about to pinch it and hand it to his younger brother who was flying below when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his fingertip.

He held the mealworm tightly in his hand and saw that it had grown a pair of wings. Although the wings were newly grown and looked weak, the winged mealworm had become much stronger. It opened its mouth and bit Sensente's fingertip hard.

"Fourth Brother? What's wrong?" Rolot asked, looking up.

Holding the mealworm by the head, Sen Sente breathed a sigh of relief and warned, "Be careful, this mealworm has wings and it will bite."

Nodding, Lorot pinched the wheatworm's wing base with one hand and quickly dug a hole with the other, burying the wheatworm deep in the soil. When he straightened up, he felt incredibly heavy in his hands and feet, as if he could barely fly. Looking up through the layers of wheat leaves, Lorot murmured, "It's getting dark."

Sensen shook his still-aching fingertips, leaned against the wheat stalks, and looked up at the sky: "Yes, the sun is about to set."

They looked at each other in silence. Both flower fairies were too exhausted to say anything more. Turning their gaze away, Sensen was about to continue catching wheat worms when a shout suddenly came from the wind:

"The pesticide has been prepared! Everyone, leave the wheat field as soon as possible! Today's work is finished! Go home immediately!"

Under the influence of the magic, the voices rang clearly in his ears, but Sensen was still somewhat bewildered: "Did I hear that right? Are they telling us to go home? Insecticide? Is it a magical potion specifically for killing wheat weevils?"

Rolot hesitated, "But there are still so many mealworms on the wheat! I heard them telling us to go back too, isn't that the officer's voice?"

In the end, the two brothers flew out of the wheat field and saw that the other flower fairies were also full of confusion. However, the orders of the official were still echoing in everyone's ears, and they eventually flew back to their treehouse.

Standing on the treehouse terrace, the flower fairies looked towards the farmland. As the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness fell completely, they discovered a radiant figure in the wheat field under the night sky—the Flower Fairy had not yet left!

The deep purple-red insecticide was prepared before sunset.

The Tree of Life did not specifically indicate whether the insecticide was harmful to the flower fairies, but to be on the safe side, it was safer to avoid using it on them. Therefore, Shu Xin did not use the insecticide immediately, but waited until nightfall, when all the flower fairies had returned to their dwellings, before she waved her magic wand and released a super-wide-range layered magic to atomize the insecticide.

The purplish-red mist evenly covered the branches and leaves, with an immediate effect. The wheat weevils fell to the ground with a rustling sound, and many of them died.

The withered crops won't recover in a short time, but Shu Xin doesn't think it's a big problem. She went to check on the fish bone fertilizer and fish scale fertilizer a couple of days ago. These two powdered fertilizers are almost ready to be dried. Sprinkling some fertilizer on the ground should be enough to save the yield.

The next day, Shu Xin found the caravan that was resting in the Land of Sin and saw her old acquaintance, Cocona.

After giving Coco a brief introduction to the insecticide, Shu Xin asked, "What do you think of this insecticide? Will it sell?"