Chapter 1366: Ninth Center Potato Harvest

On the afternoon Zhang Shi and Ye Yiyi underwent surgery, Xia Qing was afraid something unexpected might happen to them, so she stayed inside the territory, reinforcing the greenhouse frames to prepare for the coming natural disaster.

For the animals, Xia Qing being inside the territory meant a day they could move about freely.

While Xia Qing inspected and reinforced the various greenhouses, the wolfdog Wolf Lao Er stayed by her side, handing her tools; Sheep Boss drew water from the reservoir to irrigate the vegetable beds and the nectar plants in the beekeeping greenhouse. Does Daigua was in charge of guarding the irrigation channel and the vegetable beds — once a bed was filled, it would block it off with the small shovel Xia Qing had prepared for it and open the next one.

After all the vegetable beds were watered, Does Daigua picked up the small shovel and shouted, "Eh!"

Xia Qing rushed over, saw the beds were all watered, and blocked the irrigation channel so the water Sheep Boss had drawn up could splash back into the reservoir.

Does Daigua, having finished its work, was rewarded with a small bowl of mealworms and happily squatted in a sunny spot, sharing the treat with Does Ergua.

Little Feimao, carrying a large pinecone in its mouth, climbed over the Third Territory wall, ran up to Xia Qing who was working, and tried hard to stuff the pinecone into her pocket.

"Little Feimao found a quality pinecone?" Xia Qing took it with a grin, chiseled it a few times with a hammer, and handed it back. Little Feimao dug out a pine nut and ate it with a crunch crunch, joyfully wagging its big tail. After eating its fill, it dug out all the remaining pine nuts, stuffed them into Xia Qing's pocket, and left the Third Territory to continue foraging.

In the basement, Zhang Shi — her face covered in several patches of gauze — held up a vial of nutrient solution to Ye Yiyi's mouth. Ye Yiyi's face was also covered in gauze, and she was clutching a large bundle of wool. Zhang Shi coaxed her to drink some.

Then Zhang Shi lowered her head and continued making little sheep out of wool felt. The wool Xia Qing had sent over was plentiful enough, so she planned to make three — one for Shiyi, one for Ye Yiyi, and one for Tan Qi.

That afternoon and evening, Xia Qing didn't see Zhang Shi or Ye Yiyi come out to move around.

The next morning, Xia Qing messaged Zhang Shi, confirmed the two of them didn't need her help, handed the territory over to Beard Feng's squad, and hurried to the Ninth Center to harvest potatoes.

Harvesting high-yield crops during a year of natural disaster is an enormously significant activity. So today it wasn't only Xia Qing — multiple officials from the Agricultural Department, the managers of the other four planting centers outside the safe zone — the North Region Three Second Planting Center, the North Region Two Third Planting Center, the South Region Fourth Planting Center, and the East Region Fifth Planting Center — as well as a representative from Hui San Territory, all came to study.

In addition, reporters from Hui City and Hui San also came to film and interview. Afterward they would report on this widely to boost the public's confidence in facing the natural disaster.

The Ninth Center held a special meeting for this, drew up the morning's visiting and interview schedule, and distributed it in advance to the relevant departments, requiring them to follow the procedure.

Anyone raising objections? Their access would be revoked on the spot. With Zhang San, the Hui San Base Leader, and the Agricultural Department Director backing her, Xia Qing's spine was plenty stiff. The Ninth Center was a quasi-military planting center, not an exhibition hall — it had no obligation to receive visitors or interviewees.

Twenty minutes after Xia Qing drove into the Ninth Center, she received word from the inspection team that the visiting and studying personnel's vehicles had already arrived at the south gate of the North Region One territory.

After Xia Qing led Yue Haiying, Yan Yue, and Planting Department Head Mao Chuntai to bring the visitors in, the Director spoke briefly, then joined the Ninth Center's managers and staff to dig soil, pick up potatoes, and weigh them.

The first to be harvested were the breedable optimized seeds marked with red string among this batch of potatoes. Across four mu of potatoes, there were 63 breedable optimized plants, yielding 562 potatoes of various sizes. Although these optimized seeds didn't reach Green-Light quality, their qiang element content had dropped to between 5.8 and 6.8‰ — still very encouraging.

Xia Qing picked up a large, round potato and weighed it in her hand, her eyes shining with joy. "This potato weighs over nine liang — it's a quality seed. Luckily, by the time the soil anaerobic bacteria evolved, the potatoes had already entered their late growth stage, so the quality wasn't affected too much."

The reporter from Hui City headquarters immediately pressed the shutter, capturing this precious photo.

Agricultural Department Director Yang Benming was also grinning from ear to ear. "If we store these potatoes well, next spring we can plant a full mu, and might just grow one or two Green-Light potatoes."

Xia Qing cautiously lowered the leader's expectations. "The food storage warehouse is being built at full speed and will definitely be finished before the qiang snow. The potatoes will definitely be stored properly. But Instructor Zhang says that, due to this variety, the next batch faces great difficulty in producing Green-Light potatoes — at best, we can maintain the current quality."

The "Instructor Zhang" Xia Qing referred to was Zhang Tao, the breeding expert from Territory Seven. Her judgment was, of course, highly credible.

Yang Benming indeed lowered his expectations. "Stable high yields are already quite impressive. Will the next batch of potatoes also have a shorter growth cycle?"

While the evolution of the soil anaerobic bacteria brought crisis, it also accelerated the potatoes' growth and shortened their growth cycle. The potatoes, which should have ripened late next month, matured nearly a month early.

If the next batch of potatoes could maintain this growth speed, then potatoes planted after the second qiang rain could be harvested before the third qiang rain — the entire growth process could avoid the qiang rain, and there would be no need to worry about the threat of potato plants qiang-evolving into dancing potato vines during the qiang rain.

Xia Qing certainly hoped the cycle could be shortened too. "We'll have to see how the next batch of potatoes grows before we can confirm whether the 'shortened growth cycle' trait will remain stable."

Yang Benming nodded. "The breeding centers inside the safe zone are also stepping up research. To be safe, next spring we'll still have our six planting centers expand potato planting area first."

If the qiang rain couldn't be avoided, the risk of planting potatoes for territories with few people and insufficient weapons was still too high.

Xia Qing nodded and said nothing. She only managed the Ninth Center — what the other centers did wasn't her business.

Although Xia Qing didn't chime in, Yang Benming still found her very pleasing to the eye. If every official in the Agricultural Department were as capable as Xia Qing, Yang Benming couldn't imagine how much less worry he'd have.

After harvesting and weighing, it was confirmed that the Ninth Center's four mu of greenhouses yielded a total of — jin of potatoes, reaching a per-mu yield of 9,220 jin!

Although everyone knew this was a high-yield, high-risk crop, after going through the natural disaster of the soil anaerobic bacteria evolution, the Ninth Center's potatoes still achieved such a high yield, which thrilled everyone.

Because these weren't crops grown in standardized greenhouses isolated from qiang elements — this meant other planting centers and territories planting potatoes could also achieve such high yields!

Everyone was mentally calculating how many mu of potatoes they'd need to plant to solve their department's food and clothing problem, and how many points they could earn selling potatoes — full of drive.

This event achieved its intended effect. Yang Benming left satisfied with his team, taking with him over 12,000 jin of potatoes.

Seeing that the Ninth Center had actually kept over 20,000 jin of potatoes, Zhao Baolin and the others who had come along to visit were green with envy.

However, Xia Qing's aura was too strong and her face was drawn very long, so they didn't dare ask anything.