My village can't be like this

Chapter 698: Precious Farm Manure

"Okay Aunt Wang, we'll do whatever you tell us to do today."

Sure enough, upon hearing Wang Fang's words, the three of them returned to the ridge of the field very energetically, let go of the seedlings in the field, and instead pulled up Wang Fang and the others, tied them into handfuls and carried them to the empty field next to them.

But sometimes, they were thrown in a hurry, and although the garbage was not scattered, it still fell in the paddy field in a mess.

"Boss Lu, when you put the seedlings in the field, you have to put them upright so that the water won't spill when you plant them later."

After seeing this, a few villagers who came to help reminded them with a smile.

Chen Ze has been living in the village, and the two fat brothers would come to the village from time to time, especially Lu Cheng, who was the big boss who gave them money specifically, so they had known each other for a long time and were not at all restrained when talking.

"Ah, there is such a thing."

When the three heard this, they went back and straightened up the fallen seedlings.

When they carried the seedlings over later, they didn't throw them directly, but put them down after walking into the field.

The speed of re-ploughing the paddy fields is very fast, much faster than the initial plowing.

In addition, Zhang An and his wife led the horses to the fields early in the morning, so by around nine o'clock, several acres of paddy fields had been re-plowed. Wang Fang also happened to bring people to pull the seedlings that needed to be planted, so everyone started working in the fields.

"Zhang An, don't you need to spread fertilizer on your field? Can you just plant the rice seedlings directly?"

Several villagers who came to help saw that Zhang An's family started planting rice directly after plowing the field, so they asked curiously.

Because in their family, before transplanting rice seedlings, the paddy fields have to be plowed again and fertilizer has to be spread before transplanting.

"It has been spread, but it was not urea, but manure from home. We moved it in when we plowed the field before, so there is no need to spread it again today."

Zhang An smiled and explained that his family had not used urea or compound fertilizer as the base fertilizer in the fields in recent years, but only farm manure fermented at home.

In the first few days of plowing the fields, Zhang An and his father moved the fermented fertilizer to the fields. After two plowings, the fertilizer applied to the fields had already penetrated into the soil and truly became base fertilizer.

By doing this, the field will be more fertile than if compound fertilizer is spread.

This is also one of the reasons why Zhang An’s family’s fields have been experiencing increased production in recent years.

"Isn't this the method used in the past? But the crops in those years were not very good."

The villagers present were all experienced farmers, and each had at least twenty or thirty years of farming experience.

When they heard what Zhang An said, they immediately remembered that this was the method of applying base fertilizer before transplanting rice ten years ago.

Because in those days, the country's industrial development was just starting out, and the fertilizer industry was simply in short supply.

This resulted in fertilizers being extremely expensive and difficult to buy in the past.

The farmers at that time were living in the most difficult and poor times. They could be said to have to tighten their belts and live on hunger.

So don’t just say that fertilizers are not available. Even if they are available, people don’t have the money to buy them.

Therefore, when farming, they used farmyard manure, which was the same method used by Zhang An's family.

"It definitely has an effect. Without going into details, as long as it is well-fermented, the yield from crops grown with it is no worse than that of fertilizer."

In terms of fertility between farmyard manure and chemical fertilizer, farmyard manure is definitely closer to the soil and can better release its fertility, but the prerequisite is that it must be well fermented.

Otherwise, if the soil is not fermented well, it will not only cause a problem of insufficient fertility, but will also cause seedling burn.

Here, Zhang An would like to explain the era of the big pot meal.

Many people say that in the past there were no chemical fertilizers, so the crops did not yield well, which led to so many people going hungry.

But in fact, the fact that so many people were starving had nothing to do with the good or bad harvest at the time.

Once before, when Zhang An and Mr. Huang went into the mountains, the old and the young talked about old times.

From Mr. Huang, Zhang An learned about some of the things that happened in that era.

In fact, in the early days of the big pot era, most people were still very motivated and passionate.

At that time, the fields were fertilized with genuine organic fertilizer and were taken care of with the utmost care.

But the harvest at that time was not bad, it could be said to be the best harvest in history.

Although it cannot be compared with recent years, that is a problem with seeds and nothing else matters.

After all, the country's investment in seed research in recent years has already begun to show results. Take hybrid rice as an example, the current yield is much higher than before.

Some people may wonder why there are no relevant records when the harvest was so good in those years.

Zhang An found the answer to this question only after asking Mr. Huang and the others.

Take Changqing Village for example, the harvest in the first few years exceeded the target.

But what was very frustrating was that the teammates around him were too exaggerated at the time. Each of them was bolder than the sky and dared to brag about anything, and they reported it to their superiors one after another.

So in this case, the real situation was completely obscured by the great waves of history.

But Zhang An didn't exist at that time, and Wang Fang and her generation were still young.

All they remembered was the period of drought that followed.

It is normal that you cannot remember the early years.

But several old people have said this before, which is enough to prove that in the first few years, the crops in the fields were really good and the years were much better than in previous years.

Take the paddy field in Changqing Village for example. The normal output at that time was around 600 to 700 kilograms.

But every New Year, the second grandfather and other older generations would reminisce and tell Zhang An with certainty that at that time, the yield per acre of rice in the village was more than 1,000 kilograms.

This is enough to show that in the first few years, everyone put all their energy into the land and it was reaped the rewards.

"I remember that there were two years when the harvest from the fields in our village was really good. I was only seven or eight years old at that time. It was only after the drought that there was no harvest. However, no matter how good it was then, it was not as good as your family has been in recent years."

The person who was speaking was a woman named Zhang Chunyan. She had been a villager of Changqing since she was a child, and she married into the village when she grew up. She knew more about many things than other people who married into the village from outside.

Although Zhang Chunyan was only that old at that time, she had already followed the adults to work in the fields, so she clearly remembered that the harvest of the same blood rice was not even half of what Zhang An's family gets today.

"Haha, maybe the fertilizer we make ourselves is better, and this field hasn't been used to grow blood rice for many years, so it's so good." In response to this, Zhang An just laughed it off and dealt with it casually.

Because his family knows their own business, in everyone's eyes, the blood rice they grow is still the old variety of rice.

But in fact, this blood rice is no longer the blood rice that everyone knows. Zhang An has used space to optimize it into a new variety. Not only has the yield increased, but it has also become more delicious.

Moreover, Zhang An’s farm manure is not the grass manure that everyone used to produce by simply keeping livestock in a pen and letting them ferment for a period of time.

After their family's farm manure was cleaned out of the pen, Zhang An processed and fermented it again, and the fertility must be different from before.

In addition, for Zhang An's blood rice, from germination to breeding, and then to transplanting, Zhang An used the magical thing called space spring water in almost every process.

Who knows, he might have to pour space spring water into the fields several times when he releases water for irrigation later.

Space spring water is a great treasure. Watering any crop with it can increase its yield and accelerate its ripening, not to mention Zhang An's blood rice, which has been soaked in space spring water since before it sprouted.

If this is done and the output is still not high, that would be really strange.

But Zhang An would definitely not explain the reason to others.

"Zhang An, your family has so many animals, so they should produce a lot of manure. I'm afraid you can't use it all. Forget about it this year. Why don't you sell us a car next year?"

The other people did not doubt Zhang An's words, but it was also because of this that they started to use the farm manure produced by Zhang An's family.

The sale of farm manure has existed for decades, and it required a ticket.

Although the business of farm manure has faded from everyone's sight in recent years, it has returned to everyone's attention since the village started raising deer.

In addition, there are many families planting orchards in Changqing Village now, and the farmyard manure produced by their own orchards is definitely not enough.

Therefore, the buying and selling of these manures is very common in the entire Changqing Village.

Moreover, Zhang An's family has good fertilizer, which is a recognized fact in the village. Not to mention growing crops, just talking about the vegetables they grow on a daily basis, with the same seeds, the vegetables grown by Zhang An's family are tastier than those grown by other families.

"If there really was more, I would have sent you a few truckloads. You only see that my family has a lot of livestock, so the fertilizer produced is more, but you don't think about it. My family has so many fields and dozens of acres of fruit trees. My third uncle has told me many times, but it's not enough."

Zhang An spread his hands and explained to several people helplessly.

In fact, the various fertilizers at home are not so scarce. After using them up at home, we can give some to my third uncle Zhang Jianye’s home.

If only one person asked for it in private, Zhang An felt that it would not be a problem to give him one or two cars.

Of course, the cars here are horse-drawn carriages, and a car full of fat is not a lot.

But the problem is that so many people have opened their mouths and it’s impossible to deliver them all.

Furthermore, we are all in the same village and no one can hide anything. Today you give two cars to this person, and tomorrow another person comes and asks for them. Although everyone says they want to buy them with money, it still remains to be seen whether you will give them or not.

I want to give, but I don't have that much at home. If I don't give, I will offend many people. It's obvious that the problem is not the lack of wealth but the inequality of wealth.

So Zhang An decided that no matter who came to ask for help, he would just find a reason to get rid of them, so that he wouldn't offend anyone.

"Okay, when there's any left, remember to share some with us."

After hearing what Zhang An said, several people were suddenly disappointed.

But I'm not too discouraged, because if I don't have it, neither do others, so we all start from the same starting line.

"Okay, when there are some extra, I'll give some to you guys then."

No matter what, since they said so, Zhang An couldn't just refuse, so he had to agree first.

But in the end, whether there is anything left or not is up to you.

Although everyone was chatting, the hands that were planting rice were not slow at all.

Chen Ze, the fat man and the other two only learned for a short while before they were already planting the seedlings quite neatly. After all, they were doing it by pulling ropes, so it looked quite neat.

If you don't use a rope, it will probably start to twist if it goes more than two rows.

The three of them were still novices, so Zhang An only allocated them a small area, enough for each of them to plant five seedlings, just for them to have some fun.

But even though each person only has a small area, the three of them together are equivalent to a skilled worker, so they are a considerable help.

In less than one morning, all the seedlings in a field were planted.

It was still early, so Wang Fang went home early to cook, and everyone continued to work in the fields.

"Old Chen, look what's on your leg, it's digging into your flesh and it's bleeding."

When they moved to the next field, the fat man walked behind Chen Ze. The next moment, he shouted in horror to Chen Ze in front of him.

"It's a leech. How come it's so big? Zhang An, quickly swat it away for me. I don't dare to do anything."

Chen Ze looked down and found that there was indeed a leech attached to his calf.

He had seen this thing last year and was not very scared. He also knew that he could not pull the leech but could only slap it off.

But this time the leech that was stuck on his leg was not small. Even when it was curled up, it was still as big as a little finger. He was terrified just by looking at it. He was worried that if he tried to slap it, the leech would be slapped off his leg and onto his hand, so he didn't dare to do it.

"You know what? It's hard to come across leeches this big. Old Chen, you're lucky."

Although there are many paddy fields and leeches in Changqing Village, it is rare to see leeches that grow this big.

Zhang An didn't want to tease Chen Ze, but instead helped him slap the leech off with a slap.

However, a leech this big is perfect for catching and making medicine, so Zhang An found a leaf and picked it up from the ground.

"My leg is still bleeding, I hope it's okay."

Although the leech was gone, blood was still oozing from the place where he was bitten. Chen Ze quickly asked Zhang An.

"It's okay. That leech is a little too big, so the bite wound is a little bigger. But it's okay. It will solidify and form a scar in a while."

In fact, it was just a drop of blood, probably not even as much as a thorn would cause, so it was nothing serious.

(End of this chapter)