Professor Luo's full name was Luo Mingliang. He had graduated from the College of Agricultural Mechanization and specialized in agronomy, specifically research into crop cultivation.
Later, he had come to Northern Xinjiang, where he had spent those ten years working at the grassroots level, under the fine-sounding name of reform.
Because of that, Professor Luo was quite dedicated to studying Northern Xinjiang's soil.
Whenever he had no classes, Professor Luo would busy himself in his little Experimental Field. Much of his time teaching students was spent there, too.
For someone in agronomy, that was perfectly normal.
"I heard from Professor Wu that you have a piece of saline-alkali land you want to improve? How big is it?"
"A little over twenty mu. It was originally thirty, but I turned five mu into Livestock Enclosures. After leaving out some odd corners, I plowed up about twenty mu."
Li Long answered earnestly:
"Before I came, the land had already been flood-irrigated, and we'd dug drainage ditches along the edges to carry off the salts. That can help remove them, but the salinization is pretty severe in our area, so flushing the salts out with water is difficult.
"I came here for advice partly to see whether there are any cash crops that tolerate saline-alkali soil well, and partly to find out whether soil testing and fertilization can be carried out on a small plot."
Li Long gave a fairly detailed account. Professor Luo thought for a moment before saying:
"Given Northern Xinjiang's current growing conditions, cotton is the cash crop that tolerates saline-alkali soil. But there's a major problem with growing cotton. The seeds can germinate in saline-alkali conditions, but after the Start of Spring rains, salts and alkalis in the topsoil form a crust that holds the seedlings down.
"For the