Chapter 159 Experimental Base
Looking at the thriving experimental base in front of him, which was being built at a speed visible to the naked eye, Anton Peruz felt quite satisfied.
Anton Peruz and his group were those strange strangers in the eyes of the residents of the Second Town.
After all, compared with the immigrants, Anton Peruzzi and his group were all dressed in suits and were followed by people sent by the East African colonial government. They were obviously extraordinary figures.
The Second Town was also notified to cooperate with Anton Peruzzi and others in order to build an experimental base for the East African Institute of Tropical Agriculture. The Second Town had both manpower and land.
In fact, Anton Peruz was also shocked when he first arrived in the second town. From the moment he passed through the urban area of the first town, Anton Peruz suspected whether this was an overseas branch of the Kingdom of Prussia.
The uniform Prussian military uniforms shocked every scientific researcher in Anton Peruz's team.
Fortunately, there were East African colonial government officials accompanying them who acted as guides and solved many of the doubts of Anton Peruzzi and others.
However, Anton Peruzzi and his research team were still shocked by Ernst's generosity in the East African colonies.
Just to dress hundreds of thousands of people must have cost a lot of money, which is definitely an astronomical figure for ordinary people in this era.
This is indeed the case. In addition to the fact that Ernst bought a large number of second-hand Prussian military uniforms from the Prussian government in the early days, he later bought a factory to produce "monkey version" Prussian military uniforms for supply to East Africa.
After all, the Prussian army had only a few hundred thousand people, so how could there be so many second-hand military uniforms for Ernst to get for free? In addition, the Austrian royal family was not close at the beginning, so Ernst did not think of buying some second-hand goods from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to save some costs. Besides, the big white Austrian military uniforms were not resistant to dirt. Would it be acceptable for immigrants to wear them when working in the fields?
The "monkey version" Prussian military uniform also made many modifications for the East African region. The weather in East Africa is like summer all year round, so there is no need for so much cloth, so it was saved; the Prussian weird peaked helmet, regardless of whether it is useful or not, Ernst did not like it just from the aesthetic point of view, so it was discontinued; what is the use of so many buttons? Cut it down; belt? What belt do you want? Just give everyone a rope...
The modified "monkey version" of the Prussian military uniform is unrecognizable, but it is still very conservative. After all, the strong ultraviolet rays in East Africa prevent it from becoming short-sleeved, and Ernst did not save on the fabric.
Therefore, the "monkey version" of the Prussian military uniform still has some resemblance to the Prussian military uniform as a whole. In addition, there were second-hand Prussian military uniforms of early immigrants mixed in it. Anton Peruzzi and others were able to see at first glance that almost everyone in the East African colonies was dressed in Prussian military uniforms.
Over the past month, Anton Peruz and others have gradually become accustomed to the dress of East African residents.
Anton Peruz's experimental base was built on the east bank of the Little Rhine River, directly occupying a lot of cultivated land developed in the second town. Together with the undeveloped land, the fertile land alone covered more than 700 acres.
Covering the hills in the south, the plains in the north and the depressions along the Little Rhine, the natural conditions and topography are very superior.
The Little Rhine ensures water supply, and hills, plains and depressions can provide diverse terrain materials.
Water-lifting windmills were built on the shore to supply water to the fields continuously. According to Anton Peruz's requirements, the fields were built with stones and soil to build water-retaining ridges, and were divided into plots of different sizes to facilitate the observation of the growth characteristics of crops under different planting scales.
Water discharge gates are also built on the fields to control the amount of water in the fields and to achieve the transition between paddy fields and dry fields at any time.
Laboratories, archives, warehouses and staff dormitories have been built around the base. All the equipment in the laboratories was imported from Europe, including microscopes, culture dishes, calipers... everything you need.
It comes with a botanical garden, vegetable plot and flower garden, and a portion of the land is planned for tree planting.
This will be the main place for Anton Peruz to work and research in the future. In fact, Anton Peruz’s team can take the initiative to conduct field research throughout East Africa.
Although Anton Peruz had better hardware facilities in Germany, East Africa was the paradise for Anton Peruz, a tropical botanist.
Plants that were previously only known through data and specimens can now be seen locally. Moreover, East Africa is vast, with rainforests, grasslands, mountains, deserts... and a variety of tropical climate types.
…
Anton Peruz's experimental base has not yet opened, but that does not prevent him from giving classes to the students first.
“Local conditions in East Africa are very conducive to agricultural development, but of course it is its weaknesses that determine a region’s agricultural potential.
Agriculture and plant growth are inseparable from four factors: land, heat, water and light.
Take East Africa for example. The shortcoming that determines East Africa's agricultural potential is its land. Of course, the terrain in East Africa is relatively flat, but the main problem is the soil."
The students followed Anton Peruz, trying hard to record what he said.
“The land energy output in tropical regions is actually much higher than that in mid- and high-latitude regions, but this energy cannot be effectively absorbed by the soil and is instead stored in the plants and animals in tropical regions.
This is also the reason why the vegetation in tropical regions is dense, but the soil fertility is not as good as that in temperate and frigid zones.
Tropical land is not barren, but the nutrients do not penetrate into the soil, and our crops need the nutrients in the soil. "Anton Peruzzi said his own views.
"Professor, since you said that tropical soil cannot retain nutrients, doesn't that mean this land is still barren?" a student questioned.
"This is what I'm going to tell you next. What is soil? In my understanding, it is 'sand' with impurities, but compared to the sand in the desert, this 'sand' is finer and can be connected together. At the same time, there are nutrients in the soil that we cannot observe with the naked eye. The amount of these nutrients determines the fertility of the soil."
Anton Peruz picked up a handful of soil from the ground and put it in his hand and said: "You see, the soil here is dark red. Many places in low-latitude areas have red soil, while the middle latitudes have white soil, and the high latitudes have turned into black soil.
So as the latitude changes, the soil color changes, and the soil fertility also changes, but we know that the vegetation at high latitudes is actually not as good as that in tropical regions.
This again involves the factors of sunlight and precipitation. Plants need sunlight and water to grow. Without these two, most plants will die.
The existence of tropical rainforests just proves that the nutrients produced in the tropics are much higher than those in the frigid zones. However, once we use the red soil in the tropics to grow food crops, the effect is not as good as the black soil in mid- and high-latitudes.
This shows that a large amount of nutrients in the tropical soil have been taken away. This is definitely not the fault of vegetation, because there are still large areas of vegetation in high latitudes. The low temperature in high latitudes prevents many plants from growing. Temperature factors should not be the main culprit, so we can only consider the water aspect.
Early civilizations were born in areas where rivers were silted up. For example, agriculture in ancient Egypt flourished due to the flooding of the Nile River.
The rivers in tropical rainforests are more dense and have more water, so why don’t they have these effects?
Because the rivers in the tropical rainforest hardly accumulate silt, but instead carry away nutrients from the soil along the coast.
Although East Africa is also tropical, the precipitation is average, so this situation does not exist. Therefore, research on soil fertility focuses less on the relationship between soil and water.
Of course, this is just my guess, and I still need to verify its authenticity through experiments later.
Only by understanding the rules can we better prescribe the right remedy and improve soil fertility in East Africa.”
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
