Planting Wheat Costs

Soon, Sally brought Levin over.

Levin was happy to see Duke, but also a little embarrassed. He scratched the back of his head, not knowing what to say.

"You were fired, weren't you?"

"Yes, Boss."

"Then come work for me. The salary is the same as at the shop, 6 silver dragons a month, with a bonus at the end of the year if your performance is excellent."

"Okay!" Levin nodded vigorously.

Duke smiled and asked, "Sally mentioned you don't live at home anymore, right?"

"They rented out my room," Levin replied. His parents had never treated him well and had always wanted to kick him out after he turned eighteen. Now that his room was rented out, Levin had nowhere to go, and with his dismissal, he had no place to live. Fortunately, Aunt Abby had taken him in, letting him stay at her place for a few days.

"Go to Aunt Abby's place, pack up your things, and move here from now on. There's a storage room next door; you can tidy it up yourself."

"Okay!"

After Levin had packed his things, Duke took him out for lunch. With a bit of money in hand, Duke didn't want to be stingy with himself. He would eat out when he needed to. After all, eating didn't cost that much—the real expense was privately buying spirit beast meat to cultivate the blood refining method.

After lunch, Duke took Levin to Little Duke Farm.

The civilian construction team hired with money had no puppet assistance; the workers relied entirely on their own hands and feet. However, the construction speed was not slow. In a few days, the foundation was dug, the wall frames were erected, and the pouring of rebar and cement had begun. Of course, it was just ordinary rebar, with no Spirit Gold added. The main reason was that Spirit Gold was too expensive; the parts for forging a Desert Eagle alone cost several gold dragons of Spirit Gold, and using it for building houses would be astronomically expensive.

"Boss, what do I need to do on the farm?"

"You're a permanent worker here. You'll handle all sorts of chores. But our primary task right now is to hire some farmers to complete the autumn sowing for these hundred mu of land."

"What are we planting?"

"Wheat."

After supervising the construction team with Levin for a while, Duke immediately rushed off to hire farmers. There were many farms on the outskirts of Snakehead Town, and there were plenty of fixed farming teams that could be hired at any time with money.

After negotiating a price of 50 silver dragons, Duke contracted all one hundred mu of Little Duke Farm to a farming team. The captain was named Old Sef, a man with a full beard who always had a pipe in his mouth.

"Don't worry, leave it to us! My reputation, Old Sef's reputation, is as solid and reliable as this giant crab!" Old Sef said loudly to Duke, patting the puppet behind him, which resembled a huge crab.

This farming team had three old "crab-type puppets." These were civilian puppets specifically developed by the Tower of Erudition for farms, integrating plowing, sowing, fertilizing, and harvesting. With the three crab-type puppets, the farming team could sow fifty mu of land per day. The hundred mu of land at Little Duke Farm would only take two days.

"So, when will you go to my farm?" Duke asked.

Old Sef took a puff from his pipe and exhaled a large cloud of smoke. "In about a week. We're booked for the next few days. You're specifically planting wheat, right? No rush, a week is perfectly fine... You need to go buy wheat seeds now. It takes 20 jin of wheat seeds per mu!"

20 jin of wheat seeds per mu meant two thousand jin for one hundred mu. Duke jotted it down and asked, "I want to intercrop with spiritual wheat. How much spiritual wheat seed is appropriate?"

"For that, you'd best get a Spirit Plant Master to help you arrange it. But when we plant wheat on other farms, we usually mix one jin of spiritual wheat seed into ten mu of land. You could buy ten jin, or even five jin if you want less, but any less than that won't have much effect."

"I see," Duke nodded.

"You'll need to buy fertilizer too. I've looked at the land around Little River Bay, and the soil fertility isn't very good. You'll need quite a bit of fertilizer."

"How much do I need to buy?"

"For sowing and fertilizing, you'll need about twenty jin of special fertilizer per mu. You'll need to add fertilizer twice more later, so at least fifty jin of fertilizer per mu in total."

Spiritual plants could not only resonate with the Qi Sea of a Spirit Plant Master through breathing but could also resonate with plants of the same species. Therefore, most farms didn't sow spiritual wheat seeds on every mu of land, as the cost would be too high. One jin of spiritual wheat seed cost 30 silver dragons on the market, and planting twenty jin per mu was unaffordable for any farm owner. By utilizing this breath resonance ability of spiritual plants, intercropping was entirely feasible, mixing a small amount of spiritual wheat seeds with ordinary wheat seeds. A Spirit Plant Master could then guide it using a breathing technique, which could improve the quality of ordinary wheat and even have a chance to evolve into new spiritual plants.

After agreeing on the cooperation with the farming team and paying a deposit of 20 silver dragons, Duke went to the seed store in town. They only sold ordinary seeds here. A jin of wheat seeds cost about four to five copper dragons. He bought two thousand jin at once, and the boss finally sold it to him at 4 copper dragons per jin, totaling 80 silver dragons.

Next, he went to the fertilizer store. Fertilizer wasn't much cheaper than seeds; two jin of special fertilizer cost one copper dragon. Duke calculated and couldn't bring himself to buy the full fifty jin of special fertilizer per mu. He bought ten thousand jin for sowing, costing 50 silver dragons in total.

Afterward, Duke went to Chen Jiao City and visited a spiritual plant store he had browsed before.

"Young man, come take a look," the boss said enthusiastically as always.

"I've come to buy spiritual wheat seeds, five jin."

"That will be 150 Spirit Gold."

"Can you make it a bit cheaper, Boss? I have my own farm, and I'll definitely be coming to your shop for seeds often in the future."

"Ah, it's a small business... A young man like you already owns a farm. Please support my business more in the future. I'll give you this small bag of Energy-Boosting Fertilizer as a gift." The Boss added a packet of Spiritual Plant Energy-Boosting Fertilizer, worth 3 Spirit Gold, as a discount.

Once all the necessary items were prepared.

Duke did some calculations.

The fertilizer cost 50 Spirit Gold, with an additional 2 Gold Dragon needed later; the wheat seeds cost 80 Spirit Gold, and the spiritual plant wheat seeds cost 150 Spirit Gold; hiring the farming team for planting would cost 50 Spirit Gold.

"I'll need to hire people to tend to the wheat seedlings in the middle, and then hire the farming team again for the harvest later... Adding it all up, the cost for one harvest of wheat is at least 7 Gold Dragon!"

If the 20 Gold Dragon rent for ten years were factored in, and assuming two wheat harvests per year, the cost per harvest would increase by another 1 Gold Dragon.

"With an 8 Gold Dragon cost, I wonder if I can sell it for 20 Gold Dragon after next year's harvest... If I can sell it at that price, it's fine. I can make a net profit of 12 Gold Dragon in half a year, which is 2 Gold Dragon per month. That's not less profitable than Little Sam's Card Shop."

However, 20 Gold Dragon was an ideal profit. Agriculture is heavily influenced by climate. In a disaster year, he might even incur losses.

"I shouldn't think about making money for now. Just breaking even would be good."

Duke didn't necessarily need to make money from the farm. He was a Card Master, and refurbishing used cards was his main source of income right now.

Thus.

By early October, Old Sef arrived with the farming team to plant the seeds. The house at Little Duke Farm also had its roof completed, awaiting interior decoration.