Chapter 140 Learning to Plant
Yuanyuan took the seeds, placed them in her palm, and looked at and touched them carefully.
"Wow, it's so tiny! How can such a small seed grow into such tall wheat?"
"If you take good care of it, it will grow slowly."
"Just like Yuanyuan, she grew from a baby into a young lady."
Yuanyuan put the seeds back in the bag, took out a notebook from her spatial storage, and drew a few small seeds in the notebook.
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For the next week, Yuanyuan followed Gu Zheng to the fields every day. Sometimes when Gu Zheng was busy with experiments, she would observe the wheat on the ridges of the fields and draw everything she saw in her notebook.
Other uncles and aunts who were in charge of planting would also explain planting knowledge to her, teach her about fertilizers and farm tools, and tell her when to water and when to weed.
Everyone at the Forestry Bureau liked Yuanyuan very much. She was sensible and eager to learn, and seeing how serious she was, they were willing to teach her.
Some even found her a few simple planting books. Although Yuanyuan didn't recognize many of the words, she enjoyed reading them because of the many pictures. Whenever she encountered something she didn't understand, she would run to ask them.
"Why do we fertilize wheat?" Yuanyuan asked, holding her book and running to Uncle Wang, who was fertilizing the field. She looked up at him with her little face.
Wang Yuezhou put down his farm tools and explained with a smile, "Wheat needs nutrients to grow. If there aren't enough nutrients in the soil, we need to fertilize it to make it grow stronger and produce more ears of wheat."
"Oh, I see."
Yuanyuan nodded and drew a small fertilizer bag in her notebook, writing "nutrients" next to it.
"How is fertilizer made?" Yuanyuan asked, looking up as she drew small fertilizer bags in her notebook.
She had seen many kinds of fertilizer before, but what if there is no fertilizer in the beast world?
Wang Yuezhou was stunned. Nowadays, people just buy ready-made fertilizer. He didn't expect Yuanyuan to think of such details.
He leaned the hoe against the edge of the field, thought for a moment, and tried to explain in words she could understand:
There are many ways to make fertilizer.
"The most common method is to use animal manure, such as cow, sheep, and pig droppings, along with weeds, straw, and leaves, and pile them together to ferment. Over time, it becomes fertilizer."
"Manure?" Yuanyuan blinked. "Can it be used for farming?"
“That’s right.” Wang Yuezhou smiled. “In the Beast World, the feces that the beastmen excrete, as well as the bones, fruit peels, and grass leaves that they usually eat, can actually be turned into fertilizer. It’s just that they don’t know how to use them.”
Besides feces, there is another type made from ore, but this requires a more complex refining technique, which is impossible to achieve there.
He didn't mention it again.
Yuanyuan lowered her head and quickly wrote in her notebook: "Manure + grass + leaves → piled together → fermentation → fertilizer".
For words I didn't know how to write, I used pinyin instead, and I also drew a small fertilizer bag next to them.
"If we don't have these fertilizers, will we be able to manage with just soil?"
“They don’t farm; they rely on hunting and gathering wild fruits and vegetables from the forest. They don’t know how to grow crops at all.”
Most importantly, they don't have toilets there, so people urinate and defecate anywhere.
Collecting and identifying them without breeding is also very troublesome.
She felt that she had a long way to go.
Wang Yuezhou shook his head, "It might be okay at first, but after planting for many years, the nutrients in the soil will be gradually consumed by the crops, the soil will become less and less fertile, the crops will not grow well, and the yield will become lower and lower."
He thought for a moment and added, "If you want to promote farming in the Beast World, fertilizer is the first step."
You can start with the simplest thing: composting.
"The simplest one?" Yuanyuan's eyes lit up. "How do you do it?"
"Find a place not far from the tribe, but not affecting everyone's lives, and dig a big pit or fence off a piece of land."
They threw in the orcs' excrement, leftover bones, spoiled fruit, weeds, and leaves, piled them up layer by layer, covered them with soil, and let them ferment slowly.
"Fermentation?" Yuanyuan grasped this new word.
"It's about letting the contents slowly rot and generate heat, so that bacteria break down the dirt and turn it into nutrients that are useful to the plant."
Wang Yuezhou explained, "In a few months, if you open it again, it will turn into a dark, earthy substance that smells a bit earthy but not so smelly. That's fertilizer."
Yuanyuan quickly wrote it down in her notebook.
"Won't it smell bad?" she worried. "Won't the people in the tribe object?"
They all found a place to defecate and then buried it casually.
"At first, you'll definitely feel it's dirty, smelly, and you won't be used to it."
"You need to explain to them that this is so that more food can be grown in the future, so that fewer people will go hungry."
Once they see tangible results, they will gradually accept it.
Yuanyuan nodded silently, already planning in her mind how to persuade the tribal leaders when she got back.
"Besides feces, are there any other methods?"
"Yes, burning wood ash will also work."
"plant ash?"
"That's right, you collect the dead branches and weeds and burn them, and the remaining ash is wood ash."
He said, "It contains potassium, so it can be used as fertilizer when sprinkled on the ground. It has a much milder smell, but it's not as effective as manure fertilizer."
"Wood ash can be used as fertilizer?" Yuanyuan felt her brain was a bit overwhelmed; there was so much to learn about planting.
"certainly."
"The orcs must make fires often, right?"
"Whether for heating or roasting meat, the ashes can be kept." "Thank you, Uncle Wang."
"No need to thank me, you can easily find these online."
"If you have any other questions in the future, you can ask your uncle anytime. Your uncle knows a lot about farming."
"good."
"Now I'm learning how to fertilize from my uncle."
...
Besides learning how to plant, Yuanyuan also wants to learn how to build houses.
She knew that the beastmen of the beast world lived in caves or leaky wooden huts.
It's neither warm nor safe.
She wanted to teach them how to build mud-brick houses with tiled roofs, which would be warm and sturdy.
Gu Zheng knew what she was thinking, so he helped her find some pictures and information about building houses, including the structure and construction steps of adobe houses with tiled roofs, as well as some simple blueprints.
Yuanyuan couldn't understand the blueprints, and neither could he, so they simply found a professional for her.
"The first thing to do when building a house is to lay a foundation. The foundation must be solid, otherwise the house will collapse."
"Build walls with adobe or bricks, and once they reach a certain height, build a roof. The roof should be covered with tiles so that it won't leak when it rains."
Yuanyuan listened attentively, occasionally interrupting her tutor, "How are adobe bricks made? Are they made of clay?"
"Yes, adobe bricks are made by mixing soil with an appropriate amount of water, adding some straw or wheat straw, stirring well, pouring it into a mold, pressing it into shape, and then drying it before using it to build walls."
The instructor patiently explained, "This type of house is very common in rural areas. The materials are easy to find, and the construction is not complicated."
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