Chapter 380: Seed Stability and Optimized Seeds

Yang Jin proposed a 60-40 split, she disagreed; he proposed a 50-50 split, and he agreed in one breath. This shows he had inflated his opening ask from the start—a 50-50 split was already good in his eyes; his psychological expectation was probably 40-60, or even 30-70.

Next time, she could bargain harder, because she held a scarce resource in her hands.

Xia Qing continued the negotiation, "How much water does hydroponic spinach use?"

Yang Jin had long since investigated this clearly. "Each hydroponic spinach plant uses about 500 milliliters of water, which is 10% of what conventionally soil-grown spinach uses."

Xia Qing did a quick mental calculation and proposed her second cooperation condition. "The spring water is limited, so the upper limit for hydroponic scale is 3,000 plants. Do you think that's acceptable?"

3,000 hydroponic spinach plants would use 1,500 liters of water, which equals the spring's output in Xia Qing's territory over 5 days. The pollution-free spring water wasn't just Xia Qing's drinking water—it was also used for feeding chickens, feeding sheep, soaking seeds, growing high-yi-element spinach and other green-light crops, so the scale of cordyceps cultivation shouldn't be too large.

Yang Jin nodded. "Of course. The growth period for hydroponic cordyceps fungus is four months. If all goes well, each spinach plant can produce at least 20 cordyceps buds. The selling price for cordyceps buds hasn't been set yet, but it certainly won't be lower than 20 points each. The profit is very considerable."

The cordyceps fungus cultivated from one spinach plant could sell for at least 400 points; 3,000 plants would be 1.2 million points. Deducting costs, the profit was indeed not low. Xia Qing smiled and nodded.

Yang Jin continued discussing cooperation. "The germination rate of green-light spinach seeds is two-thirds, so growing 3,000 hydroponic spinach plants requires 4,500 spinach seeds. You need to put up 2,250 spinach seeds. This bag happens to contain exactly 2,250 seeds. May I take it?"

Xia Qing……

How did this guy manage to count the seeds while negotiating? Given how sharp he was, he must have picked out the largest, plumpest ones to pack, right?

Xia Qing, who had just haggled too little, although she knew cooperating with him would earn her a lot of points, still wanted to call her companion Sheep Boss over to give him a beating.

Yang Jin placed the small bag of spinach seeds on top of the sealed bag of spinach seedlings and began discussing the next transaction.

"I've gotten my hands on a nano-stealth coating made with new materials. Applied to the surfaces of metal objects like knives, guns, cameras, and howitzers, it can evade conventional radar monitoring. This new coating is currently a military non-sale item, so it's outrageously expensive—1 kilogram costs 10,000 points."

Xia Qing……

"You need to think about this: your spinach seeds have very high stability. Unless you can raise the yi-element content of your spinach, right now is when your spinach seeds are at their most valuable. 10,000 points per kilogram sounds expensive, but just this small handful of spinach seeds can get you that much. How about it—want to trade?"

Xia Qing……

"Luo-ge said you're joining the Blue Dragon Squad's training this winter, using our speed evolvers to practice long-range sniping. Will you still need us to provide equipment?"

Xia Qing……

"Gui San Base was destroyed, and a lot of second-hand building materials have flooded the market. I've gotten a batch of second-hand stainless steel pipes that can be used to build greenhouse sheds. Do you need them? The pipes for two sheds can be had for 200 spinach seeds."

Xia Qing……

"Bai San Base's high-quality green-light rice has been harvested. The Blue Dragon Squad wants to trade for a batch of green-light rice—400 points per jin. Our transport capacity is limited, and so is the purchase quantity. You can buy at most 400 jin. This batch of rice is much better than the yellow-light rice our base supplies to the military, which has a qiang-element content of 13‰. How about it—want to buy some?"

Xia Qing……

Buy, damn it, I'll buy! Everything you've proposed really is good stuff—I'll buy it all!

However, "Can we trade for Bai San Base's green-light rice seeds instead?"

Yang Jin explained, "We can trade for them, but the price is even higher. Besides, Bai San Base's rice cultivation conditions are very demanding and can't be directly planted in our territory here, so trading directly for the rice is more suitable."

Hearing that it couldn't be planted, Xia Qing felt a bit of regret, then thought it was perfectly normal—after the great evolution of Blue Star's plants, there were damn few species that didn't give people headaches.

Her spinach was the exception.

Although Xia Qing had traded with Zhang San for high-quality rice seeds that were yellow-light, and she wouldn't be able to eat yellow-light rice until after next summer's harvest. Since Yang Jin had channels to get high-quality green-light rice, Xia Qing certainly wouldn't shortchange herself.

She was still at the age for ability evolution; eating more green-light food was what would promote her body's evolution.

"I'll trade for 400 jin of green-light rice." Xia Qing wasn't short on points now—she was short on high-quality food. With such a rare opportunity, of course she'd buy as much as she could.

"Your decision is very wise. With ability, you should of course eat the best." Under Xia Qing's conflicted gaze, Yang Jin took another small bag of spinach seeds.

Xia Qing was reluctant because these were all spinach seeds she had painstakingly harvested over the past few months. But being able to trade for supplies she needed still made her happy.

Seeing Yang Jin had no other transactions to discuss with her, Xia Qing mentally sorted through the process and what she needed to say, then began discussing a transaction worth nearly ten million points with him—letting him experience what it felt like to spit back out the points he'd just earned from her.

"Captain Yang, do you know what the stability of the high-yi-element spinach cultivated by the Blazing Fire Squad is?"

Stability was an important indicator for measuring the quality of plant seeds after the great evolution of Blue Star's organisms, referring to how many generations a plant seed could be stably planted. Generally speaking, the lower the qiang-element content of a seed, the higher its stability, and the higher its selling price.

During open-air growth, green-light and yellow-light plants were affected by pollutants, qiang elements, and pests in the atmosphere, soil, and irrigation water, causing the qiang-element and other harmful substance content in the plant body to slowly rise. During qiang rain, the qiang-element content in plants accelerated, and could even surge dramatically, becoming qiang-evolved plants.

Therefore, in planting environments that didn't isolate qiang elements, every generation a plant seed was planted, the qiang-element content of the resulting crop seeds would rise by 2‰-3‰.

For example, the yellow-light cucumber seeds with a qiang-element content of 8‰ that lords received when they left the safe zone this year. After the cucumber seeds were planted in March, by the time the cucumbers fruited in May, the qiang-element content of the plants had already reached 10‰-11‰.

Because during the second planting cycle, they encountered the third qiang rain—the longest-lasting one of the Ten-Year Calamity—causing the qiang-element content of eighty percent of the cucumber plants to surge to 13‰-14‰; about ten percent of the plants reached or exceeded 15‰ qiang-element content, becoming red-light plants and being pulled out directly.

Cucumber seeds produced by plants with a qiang-element content of 13‰ could no longer be planted. Because by the time they reached the fruiting stage, their qiang-element content would already be above 15‰, making them inedible plants.

Therefore, most of the yellow-light cucumber seeds the lords received could only be planted for two generations. Using the professional terminology of post-calamity planting technology, the yellow-light cucumber seeds the lords received had two-generation stability.

However, this didn't mean that after two generations, all seeds would have a qiang-element content above 15‰. Because evolved Blue Star plant reproduction had another widely confirmed evolutionary rule:

1% anomaly.

That is: 99% of the seeds a plant produced had the same quality as the mother plant; 1% differed.

Among that 1% of differing seeds, the qiang-element content could be higher or lower than the mother plant. Those with qiang-element content more than 3‰ lower than the mother plant were called cultivable optimized seeds; those with qiang-element content less than 3‰ lower than the mother plant were called ordinary optimized seeds; those with qiang-element content higher than the mother plant were called deteriorated seeds.

The probability of these three types of anomalous seeds appearing was random, with no discernible pattern.

Taking a mother plant with a qiang-element content of 8‰ at fruiting as an example, 99% of the seeds it produced had a qiang-element content of 8‰. Among the 1% anomalous seeds, those with a qiang-element content below 5‰ were cultivable optimized seeds; those with a qiang-element content between 5‰-8‰ were ordinary optimized seeds; those with a qiang-element content above 8‰ were deteriorated seeds.

The researchers at the Planting Center selected cultivable optimized seeds, then bred them to obtain seeds with stability of two or more generations, which they then promoted for planting.