Chapter 190 Intercropping
I originally planned to plant soybeans, but then I thought that soybeans and corn could be intercropped, which would save another piece of land.
After intercropping soybeans, the rhizobia of soybeans can also provide nitrogen fertilizer to corn.
Intercropping is the process of planting different types of crops on the same piece of land with regular row and plant spacing.
Intercropping crops can be planted in combination of tall and short trees. For example, in addition to soybeans, corn can also be intercropped with peppers.
Because peppers are exposed to strong direct sunlight in the summer, they are very susceptible to sunburn. When intercropped with corn, the tall branches and leaves of corn can help block most of the sunlight.
There are many combinations of intercropping, and the characteristics of some plants can promote growth and prevent diseases and pests.
The spring planting determines whether the two can have enough food to eat in the following year.
Zhao Yeqing’s goal is not only to eat enough, but also to eat well.
She thought about this plan very carefully.
"The most common insect that corn is infected with is the corn borer. If you intercrop garlic, the smell of garlic is more pungent and can inhibit corn borers and aphids."
Mu Xi nodded, "It's also OK to interplant pumpkins. The pumpkin flowers will attract the black egg wasp, the natural enemy of corn borers, and can also play a role in preventing corn borers."
She didn't know this, so she quickly wrote it down in her little notebook.
Some crops are incompatible with each other, such as pumpkin and potato. This does not mean that the two cannot be eaten together, but if they are planted together, they will be infected with infectious diseases and pests.
Intercropping sounds complicated, but the underlying logic is actually very simple.
The matching principles should be: one round and one pointed, one high and one low, one up and one down. As long as you get the general direction right, you will basically not go wrong.
One round and one pointed refers to the leaves. Most of the round leaves are from the legume family, and most of the pointed leaves are from the grass family. Crops from these two families complement each other.
One tall and one short is like intercropping peppers with corn, using tall stalks and short plants in combination.
Up and down refers to the fruits. If corn is interplanted with sweet potatoes, the fruits of the corn will be on top and the fruits of the sweet potatoes will be on the bottom, and there will be no competition for pollination.
She was going to plant sweet potatoes, but she didn't plan to plant them together with corn.
Sweet potatoes have hardy skin, so even if they are not planted together with corn, it will not affect the yield.
She prefers corn mixed with soybeans or mixed with garlic.
Cattle, sheep and chickens raised at home all need corn as feed, so it is best to choose crops that can ensure corn yields.
"Then plant more corn, garlic and soybeans together." Mu Xi considered the situation at home and analyzed.
"Combine the two plots of land in the second row into one and plant corn on both. With so many mouths to feed at home, there will always be enough food."
There is nothing wrong with what you said.
But she still wants to plant something else, "I want to plant peanuts."
It can be fried, sprinkled with salt as a snack, added to cooking, or made into peanut butter.
Zhao Yeqing sat on the bench in front of the table, poking and tapping on the paper with the pen in his hand.
Mu Xi stood behind her, reached out to take the pen, bent down, put his hands over her shoulders, made some changes on the paper, and rested his chin on the top of her head.
"You can do this. Divide the left field in the second row into two halves. Combine one half with the corn field to form a large field, and plant the other half with peanuts."
The yield of peanuts is not high. Even if you plant one acre of peanuts, there will not be much. It is definitely not possible to extract oil from them because the yield cannot keep up and there is not enough land.
The two of them only use it for occasional meals, and half a plot of land is enough for them to eat until they can plant again next year.
"Okay, that's decided."
Garlic is planted in it just to prevent corn diseases and pests. The main crop is still corn, followed by soybeans, and garlic as a supplement.
After deciding how to plant the crops, they washed up and went to bed.
You may not feel it if you don't count the days, but when you count the days, you will find that time is really tight.
The steps for rice and glutinous rice are the most complicated. First, the seeds have to be dried in the sun, which takes two or three days, and it has to be a sunny day.
The two got up early and took out all the rice seeds. Fortunately, it was a sunny day today. Although the sun was not too hot, it was enough to dry the rice seeds for spring sowing.
The rice seeds needed to be turned over and dried. Zhao Yeqing took out a wooden rake and said, "Looking at the weather, if there is still such good sunshine tomorrow, I estimate that it will be ready in two days."
She flattened the rice seeds with a wooden rake, turned them over once at noon, again in the afternoon, and again at dusk when the sun was setting. She turned them over about three times a day.
Mu Xi went out with a hoe, shovel and rake, and first dug out the fish pond and rice field.
After two days of drying, Zhao Yeqing picked up a handful of rice seeds and felt a hint of warmth inside the seeds, which meant they were almost dried.
After drying the seeds, I have to select them. I have accumulated some experience from the previous rice planting in Meishan.
This time she still plans to use clean water to select seeds. She will soak the rice and glutinous rice seeds in water and discard the seeds that float up.
Soak the selected seeds in lime water. This is also written in the original owner's notes. The effect should be to disinfect and sterilize the seeds.
The medicinal effect of lime is simple and crude. The seeds soaked in lime water must be taken out and soaked in clean water again.
After soaking for half an hour, take out and put them into lime water. Repeat the disinfection and rinsing operations twice before the seeds are considered to have been processed.
Pour all into a basin, cover it with plastic wrap, and leave it outside to continue drying in the sun for three days.
Mu Xi did not dig the fish pond first, but dug the rice field first.
After the seeds are dried in the next two days, the rice seeds have to be put into the rice fields for seedling cultivation before they can be transplanted.
It takes about a month to grow seedlings. Zhao Yeqing is very worried that the temperature will continue to rise this year, so he has to quickly prepare the land for growing seedlings.
Both types of rice need to be grown as seedlings. The two planned fields are not small. After all, these are not ready-made fields, so we have to weed first, then deep plow, prepare the soil, and add water.
It is equivalent to reclaiming wasteland for farming, and the workload is indeed not small.
Mu Xi determined the scope and removed the weeds on the first rice field when he was tidying it.
Due to the heavy snow this year, there are very few weeds left on the meadow, so it is not too difficult to deal with them.
It requires deep plowing and then leveling the land, which is the most troublesome step.
It took the two of them two days to finish the half acre of land. Deep plowing is time-consuming and laborious, and leveling the land is even more troublesome. The land that was trampled compacted by animals had to be leveled again after being dug out.
In the end, they couldn't do it any more, so Zhao Yeqing suggested letting some water in. Later, they found that it was easier to operate after soaking in water, so they decided not to level it yet and just build the fish pond first.
After the fish pond is built and water is released, it will be more efficient to level the paddy field later.
Digging a fish pond is not that difficult. You just need to dig out a deeper space. It doesn’t matter whether the bottom is flat or there is grass.
On the afternoon of the third day, the fish pond was dug. Zhao Yeqing went to collect the rice seeds that had been drying in the sun for three days, while Mu Xi carried a hoe and a hatchet to cut bamboo to divert water.
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