Boss Liang’s family did grow navel oranges, but not many. They did not contract any mountain land, but instead converted their own mountain forest into a navel orange forest.
Navel oranges are expensive and everyone wants to grow them, so they are hard to find here. But Boss Liang is worthy of being a man who dares to open a restaurant in this town. He has a very flexible mind.
Since there is no extra mountain land for growing navel oranges, he will start a navel orange seedling business!
Seedlings do not take up much space, and many fruit seedlings can be grafted on one acre of land. After one batch of seedlings is sold, another batch can be planted.
The grafting technology is easy for those who know how to do it, but difficult for those who don't. Once you get used to it and know how to start, how to connect and how to bundle, it will be a piece of cake. It is not only easy but also has a high success rate.
Gao Mingcheng saw that a piece of land at the foot of the mountain was covered with densely packed fruit seedlings.
These fruit seedlings are divided into two types. One is the rootstock that has not been grafted yet. The rootstock used by Boss Liang is the Lycopodiella citrate, which has good affinity and has a high success rate for grafting navel oranges.
When it comes to the scientific name, some people may not know what kind of plant the Lycopodiella citrate is, but if you describe its appearance, most of the villagers may suddenly realize it and say that it is the Lycopodiella citrate.
The Lycoris radiata is a tree very similar to the orange tree, the difference is that it is covered with thorns, has fewer leaves, and produces small fruits with little pulp and lots of seeds.
Take out the seeds from the ripe fruit and plant them. When the small tree grows to a similar height, it can be used as a rootstock for grafting.
In addition to the tangerine thorn, there are also grafted navel orange seedlings in this field. The tangerine thorn is used as the rootstock, and the navel orange branches are used as scion. After a successful grafting, it will become a new navel orange tree.
These fruit seedlings are still very small. They were all grafted during the Spring Equinox this year. Now it is mid-September, and the growth of the whole fruit seedling seems to be good.
Gao Mingcheng personally watched the growth of the fruit seedlings in the field, and after asking for the price, he decided to buy a batch of fruit seedlings.
These fruit seedlings are planted densely together, and each seedling is about the size of a chopstick. After Gao Mingcheng buys them and plants them, the fruit trees will bear fruit in the third year.
But generally speaking, the first year of fruit bearing is very ordinary in taste, and it is not until the fourth year or more that the tree becomes an adult, and the fruit produced at this time is more delicious. After that, if there is no disease or disaster, the life span of the navel orange tree can be as long as 40 to 50 years.
Ideally, it can be said that grandfather plants trees and grandson enjoys the benefits.
Although he had agreed with Boss Liang to buy two hundred fruit seedlings, Gao Mingcheng was not in a hurry to have people dig the seedlings out of the ground right now.
He planned to come here tomorrow morning, buy the fruit seedlings, and then drive directly back to Gaojia Village.
The business was done, and Boss Liang was very happy. He invited Gao Mingcheng to visit his parents' home and took Gao Mingcheng for a walk in his navel orange orchard.
Navel oranges mature and are put on the market from mid-September to early October. Now they are ripe, but the skin is still green. After they continue to hang on the tree for a while, the skin will slowly turn orange-yellow, which will make them look better and the flesh will taste better.
Walking in the navel orange grove, Gao Mingcheng could smell the fragrance. He saw that some of Boss Liang's trees were taller than him, while some were only as high as his shoulders. Each tree was laden with fruits, causing the branches to droop under the weight.
When Gao Mingcheng saw the densely packed fruits, he thought that Boss Liang was probably reluctant to thin out the fruits, so although the fruits were densely grown, each orange was relatively small.
In his impression, the best navel oranges can be as big as his palm.
Just when he was thinking about how stingy Boss Liang was, he saw Boss Liang pick two oranges and hand one to Gao Mingcheng.
Boss Liang said generously: "Brother Mingcheng, the oranges you bought from me will be exactly the same as mine! I guarantee that they will be delicious and sell well!"
Boss Liang peeled an orange himself. The skin was a bit thick, but his nails were very strong and he managed to peel it off.
When the orange peel is peeled, a fine mist will spray out from the orange peel. This is the essential oil, which smells particularly fragrant. Orange essential oil can also be extracted from the orange peel through scientific means.
Amid the fragrance, Gao Mingcheng tasted the first navel orange of the year, which was just picked from the tree and was 100% fresh!
The orange peel is still green, and the color of the orange flesh is also lighter. It tastes very juicy, but the sour taste is also very obvious. At the top of the navel orange, there is a protruding place like a belly button. After peeling it, it seems like there is an unripe small orange inside.
This is edible, but the taste is just average.
Boss Liang seemed to be also soured, his eyes and eyebrows were squeezed together. He quickly said to save face: "These oranges are just ripe. In ten days or half a month, they will not be so sour! At the end of the month, a big boss will drive over to collect the goods. They are very powerful. They want to transport these oranges to Hong Kong to sell them. They say they want to earn foreign exchange!"
Gao Mingcheng asked: "How much did you sell it to them for?"
Boss Liang did not hide it from him. After all, it was not a secret. He said openly, "It depends on the quality of the oranges. If the quality is good, the price is two yuan per pound at the farm gate! If the quality is average, it can be sold for between one yuan and one and a half yuan. As for the worse ones, the big bosses will not want them. We can only keep them for ourselves or transport them to nearby counties and cities to sell."
"My family has little mountain land, so I don't make much money from selling oranges. The Party Secretary of our village has contracted a mountain, and he can earn this much in a year!"
Boss Liang excitedly held up three fingers, his eyes full of envy.
"Brother Mingcheng, guess how much this is?"
Gao Mingcheng couldn't help laughing when he heard this, thinking, you've already held up three fingers, how could I not guess it?
He said directly: "Three hundred thousand! You made three hundred thousand a year, so your village party secretary is amazing!"
Boss Liang looked at Gao Mingcheng and laughed after a moment. He said, "Brother Mingcheng is indeed a well-informed person. Some people dare not guess 300,000. They even think it's impossible to guess 30,000! One person was so funny that he guessed 3,000! Hahaha!"
Boss Liang smiled unceremoniously, as if he was mocking the man's narrow vision.
But in an era when people with an annual income of 10,000 yuan are extremely rare and most people's income is very low, for some people, making 3,000 yuan a year from selling fruit is already very good.
But the benefits of navel oranges are far more than that!
Many people saw the benefits of navel oranges, so they bought fruit seedlings and started planting navel oranges, hoping that they could also make a lot of money.
But planting and breeding are risky!
Sometimes high investment does not result in high returns!
Before setting out, Gao Mingcheng had only planned to buy a hundred or so fruit seedlings, but when he arrived at the farm, he found that each seedling was very small, and a hundred seedlings made up only such a large bundle. Boss Liang said that other people who wanted to buy would buy more than two hundred seedlings.
Gao Mingcheng took into consideration that not all of these fruit seedlings would survive after being planted and there would definitely be some losses, so he bought 200 of them.
It’s not that he couldn’t bear to buy more, but if he wanted to grow navel oranges well, the spacing between them had to be wide. After all, under ideal circumstances, the lifespan of navel oranges is as high as forty to fifty years, and even after more than ten years, it is still in its peak production period. A single tree can produce hundreds to a thousand kilograms of fruit a year!
If you plant too densely now, it will affect your future growth.
Gao Mingcheng strolled around Boss Liang's village and asked Boss Liang about the tips of growing navel oranges, how to prune branches, how to apply fertilizers, etc.
Since the two were far apart and had no direct competitive relationship, and Gao Mingcheng was very good at speaking, Boss Liang just said everything openly.
Gao Mingcheng kept it in mind, but did not believe it completely. For example, when it came to thinning the fruits, he would definitely be more ruthless than Boss Liang.
Boss Liang only saw the immediate benefits and only wanted to produce more fruits and sell them for more money. However, he did not realize that only good fruits were valuable, while inferior fruits were worthless, and he also squeezed the nutrients of the fruit trees.
At five o'clock in the afternoon, the two returned to the town. Gao Mingcheng had dinner at Boss Liang's house again and stayed overnight. The next morning, after eating a bowl of rice noodles, Gao Mingcheng went to the village with Boss Liang. When they got there, it was only 6:30 in the morning, but Boss Liang's parents had already gone to the fields to dig out the fruit seedlings and tied them up with straw at 5:30.
Boss Liang pointed at the fruit seedlings on the ground and said, "These fruit seedlings are bundled in 20s. Brother Mingcheng, you can count them. There will definitely be no one missing for you!"
Gao Mingcheng didn't want to save face by not counting. He just picked up a bundle and took a quick look. He knew that there were indeed twenty trees in the bundle. Then, by comparing its size with the others, he knew that the number should be correct.
Because the journey was long, Gao Mingcheng asked them to leave more soil at the roots of the fruit seedlings.
Gao Mingcheng was quite satisfied with the condition of the fruit seedlings. He smiled and said, "Boss Liang is honest in business, so I naturally trust you. It's a rare trip for me to come to southern Jiangxi. These fruit seedlings I bought will not bear fruit until at least three years later. It's not easy to eat navel oranges!"
"Boss Liang, I plan to buy some navel oranges from you and bring them back for my family."
Boss Liang was stunned for a moment, then said: "But it's not very cooked yet..."
Gao Mingcheng waved his hand and said, "It's okay, I'll just pick some to taste, you can just give me the price."
He didn't hesitate and after getting Boss Liang's consent, he simply took a snakeskin bag and went to the navel orange grove to pick the oranges.
Although it was early, it was already daybreak. Gao Mingcheng had good eyesight, so he picked only the big and ripe ones. He didn't pick too many, and stopped when the snakeskin bag was full.
Everyone who sells vegetables in the village has a scale, not to mention those who sell fruit. After Gao Mingcheng said he wanted to buy fruit, Boss Liang's father went home to get a scale.
I weighed it and it was a little over 52 kilograms.
Boss Liang said, "Brother Mingcheng, I'll give you these two kilograms of medicine. I'll charge you one hundred yuan."
"Okay!" Gao Mingcheng took out his wallet and paid for the fruit and seedlings.
If the navel oranges were not fully ripe and tasted a little sour, he would have planned to buy more, uh, at least a few hundred kilograms!
What a pity, the timing was not exactly right.
He loaded the navel oranges and fruit seedlings into the car, covered the seedlings with straw to provide shade, and then prepared to leave.
"Boss Liang, goodbye!" Gao Mingcheng waved goodbye to Boss Liang and his family.
"Hey, Brother Mingcheng, take care!" Boss Liang also greeted him happily. Everyone is happy to make a deal.
After Gao Mingcheng successfully bought the fruit seedlings, he did not stop on the road and drove all the way to Gaojia Village.
He had to ask for directions on the way here, which took a lot of time, but it was more convenient on the way back. The two places are nearly 300 kilometers apart. If you take the highway in the future, it will naturally be faster, but there is no highway for you to take now, and the speed of cars is relatively slow. Therefore, even if Gao Mingcheng hurried, it was already past two o'clock in the afternoon when he arrived at Gaojia Village.
In order to get back earlier, he only stopped to eat a meal along the way, and now he was a little hungry and thirsty. So after parking the car in front of his house, Gao Mingcheng ran into the yard, drew a bucket of well water, and then drank it with a ladle.
The raw water from the mountains cannot be drunk casually, but the same is not true for well water. In summer, many people drink well water directly to save firewood.
The well water is cool, thirst-quenching and has a hint of sweetness.
Gao Mingcheng had just rested for a while when Chen Dasong came over.
Chen Dasong had already received instructions from Gao Mingcheng and had made preparations at home in advance.
After seeing Gao Mingcheng, Chen Dasong said, "Mingcheng, I have asked Duoxi to go to the village to call people. You said that you wanted to plant the fruit seedlings as soon as possible, so I called three people. With the addition of us, it should be almost done."
Gao Mingcheng nodded and said, "Okay, take your hoes and buckets and get in my car. We can still drive a distance from this side to the other side of the mountain. When we can't drive anymore, we can get off the car and walk over."
"Okay." Chen Dasong nodded, and seeing that Gao Mingcheng seemed a little tired, he asked Gao Mingcheng if he wanted to take a rest.
Gao Mingcheng said, "Don't rest, plant as soon as possible. After planting, I will have dinner at your house before returning to the county. I will ask Auntie to cook more food and cook it earlier!"
Chen Dasong understood, and before the others arrived, he went back to his home and asked Aunt Liu to cook more food in the evening.
When Chen Dasong came back, he was brought with several other people, all of whom were acquaintances in the village. When Gao Mingcheng saw them, he nodded and greeted them and gave each of them a pack of cigarettes.
"Mingcheng, I happen to have some French bread at home. You can eat some to fill your stomach first." Chen Dasong handed Gao Mingcheng two French breads.
French cake is a local specialty. It has a fluffy texture and tastes pretty good. Today’s French cake is not very sweet, unlike the French cake of later generations, which uses a lot of white sugar as if it were free.
Gao Mingcheng munched on some French bread and asked everyone to get on the bus with their tools. Those who couldn't fit in the carriage sat in the bed.
Gao Mingcheng drove towards Xiaofushan. He drove along the road at the foot of the mountain, but after only seven or eight minutes, the road ahead was too narrow and he could not drive any further.
Gao Mingcheng stared ahead for a while, then said, "Uncle Chen, when the late rice is harvested, you can ask a few people to clear this road. We need to go into the mountains to take care of the orange trees and pick oranges. We can't do without a road."
Road construction is a big project, but the people who come to help are all very happy, because having work to do means making money. (End of this chapter)
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