Farm Progress

Jiang Miao walked into the office building of South Lake Farm.

"Old Lu, how's the farm doing at the moment?"

Lu Weibin, who was planning the packaging workshop, turned around. Seeing Jiang Miao, he hurried over. "Boss, I'm mapping out several work areas to prepare for purchasing equipment and setting up positions."

"You've worked hard." Jiang Miao handed him a bottle of mineral water, then reminded him, "Work is important, but you still need to eat on time. Otherwise, gallbladder polyps can easily develop into gallstones, and then you'll have no choice but to have your gallbladder removed."

"Uh... thank you for your concern, Boss." Lu Weibin had not expected his boss to pay such close attention to him.

What he did not know was that Jiang Miao had seen at a glance through the Appraisal Panel that Lu Weibin's irregular meals had caused a bile secretion imbalance.

"The company cafeteria is only a few minutes away. Go eat when it's time. Your health is the foundation of everything. If your body breaks down, what's the use of making more money?"

Lu Weibin quickly nodded. "Boss, you're absolutely right. I'll make sure to eat on time from now on."

"Back to business. HR has found you a deputy and an assistant. They're undergoing some training now and should arrive in two or three days."

"I understand. I can finally breathe easy now." Lu Weibin let out a long breath.

The group arrived beside the farm.

Workers were already busy inside the farm's greenhouses.

Lu Weibin picked up his walkie-talkie and called for the agricultural technician, Zhou Xinwang. "A Wang, come over here."

"Crackle... received!"

Before long, a young man with glasses and bronzed skin walked toward them.

"Boss, Manager Lu."

"A Wang, how are the strawberry seedlings doing?" Jiang Miao asked directly.

Zhou Xinwang adjusted his glasses and answered as if reciting from memory, "We've planted 800 Jasmine Strawberry plants, with another 500 runner plants produced. We've planted 600 Cheese Strawberry plants, with 400 seedlings. We've planted 500 Vanilla Strawberry plants, with 500 seedlings."

"Do we have enough manpower?"

Zhou Xinwang shook his head. "For now, yes. But once the first batch of planted seedlings enters its growth stage, we can begin propagating runners. At that point, the farm's three regular workers won't really be enough. I estimate that before the strawberries enter peak fruiting season, we'll need at least five more regular workers."

Jiang Miao nodded. "That's fine. I'll have HR recruit them as soon as possible."

He was paying close attention to South Lake Farm. After all, the eel industry would soon reach market saturation, and it could stay prosperous for another year or two at most.

Once the eel industry entered a low-profit stage, the company would have to develop new sources of income. Otherwise, supporting so many employees would put greater financial pressure on the company.

The strawberry industry was one of the new revenue streams Jiang Miao had prepared for the company.

A business needed diversified operations to improve its ability to withstand risks.

Of course, the strawberry industry alone was clearly not enough.

Recently, Jiang Miao had been considering an entirely new technological direction.

That was Transgenic Grafting Technology.

So-called Transgenic Grafting Technology involved first using genetic engineering to cultivate a grafting stock capable of grafting together two varieties. One variety would serve as the rootstock, the other as the scion, with the grafting stock connecting them in between.

Many people might find this strange. Since the plants were being grafted anyway, why go to the trouble of creating an intermediate grafting stock?

The reason was that ordinary grafting had a prerequisite: the closer the genetic relationship between the two sides, the higher the survival rate.

For instance, although lychees and longans both belonged to the soapberry family, soapberry subfamily, they were further divided into the lychee genus and longan genus.

Only in recent years had research institutions in Guangzhou successfully grafted lychees and longans together, and the difficulty involved had been immense.

Jiang Miao, however, planned to use genetic engineering to create a grafting stock that would allow plants of two varieties to be safely grafted together, thereby enabling rapid grafting and grafting across genera.

If this technology could be realized, its value would be enormous.

And the two varieties he had his eye on could be joined seamlessly.

As for how to develop the transgenic grafting stock, the first step was to identify the two varieties to be grafted, then artificially adjust genes suited to both varieties based on their genetic maps.

To other researchers, such technology might seem like pure fantasy.

After all, humanity had not even fully figured out its own genes, much less those of other organisms.

To graft two varieties across genera, it was necessary to completely understand the genetic maps of both varieties. Even national-level research institutions would struggle to fund a project with such massive resource demands.

The so-called Human Genome Project had required the combined efforts of multiple countries merely to produce a barely workable human genome map, and even then, it had not decoded all the functions of human genes.

But Jiang Miao could use the Appraisal Panel to instantly analyze the complete genetic map of every organism.

He could also save an enormous amount of time in transgenic experiments. He would not need prolonged observation or comparative experiments to determine all the effects after genetic modification.

Thus, Jiang Miao's seemingly mad project actually had a chance of succeeding.

The targets he had chosen for research were Bombax and Durio, both belonging to the Bombacaceae family.

There were two reasons for choosing these two varieties.

One was to make money. Durian prices were high enough to allow investment costs to be recouped quickly.

The other was that the Lingnan Area was one of Bombax's places of origin. Bombax trees were widespread throughout Lingnan, making it convenient to rapidly expand the scale of cultivation.

As long as durians could be successfully grafted onto Bombax, Bombax's ability to adapt to Lingnan's climate could allow durians to flower and bear fruit in the Lingnan Area.

What was more, Jiang Miao could select some highland durian varieties with relatively strong cold resistance.

Jiang Miao therefore planned to invest 50 million next year to build a genetically modified food breeding laboratory.

This laboratory would require quite a bit of specialized equipment, such as a PCR Machine, Electrophoresis Apparatus, centrifuges, Gel Imaging System, Nucleic Acid Protein Analyzer, and so on.

Originally, Jiang Miao had no need at all for testing equipment such as a Gel Imaging System or Nucleic Acid Protein Analyzer. But to avoid drawing attention and make the emergence of research results seem more reasonable, such testing equipment was indispensable.

The laboratory would also need things like an Ultra-Clean Workbench.

All of this would cost a considerable amount of money.

However, Jiang Miao only needed to provide the funding; the professional work could be left to professional contractors.

Fifty million was indeed nothing to the current Hai Lu Feng Company. What was more, this kind of investment could effectively and reasonably lower net profits, reducing tax expenditures.

Lin Shuya's Edible Mushroom Laboratory also needed to go out for bidding.

He planned to put both projects out to public tender next year and have the two laboratories built together. Since both were biology-related laboratories, much of their equipment would be interchangeable.

However, genetic modification involving fungi and the like came with certain uncontrollable factors. Jiang Miao definitely would not let Lin Shuya research it. If she ended up creating some kind of superbug, they would be finished.

With genetically modified plant experiments, the experimental products could still be destroyed through physical means.

But for experimental products involving fungi, bacteria, and the like, even top-tier biological laboratories would not dare guarantee that they could eliminate them completely.

If even a tiny trace remained, it could lead to a major disaster.

Even with the Appraisal Panel, Jiang Miao remained deeply wary of the field of microorganisms. Microorganisms reproduced far too quickly, possessed extremely strong adaptability, and had mutation characteristics that were difficult to control. Once something went wrong, the consequences could very well be catastrophic.

When Lin Shuya had gone on to pursue her doctorate, he had advised her not to choose medicinal fungi as her field. In truth, it was because he instinctively feared microorganisms.