Chapter 124

Qing Mengzhu: "What about the other farmers?"

Zhao Hexi: "Let the birds eat it; consider it normal waste. If that's not possible, put it in a bag."

Qing Mengzhu: "Bagging will affect the growth of the plants, that won't work."

Zhao Hexi: "Should we keep small animals? I think dogs would be great; they hardly eat vegetables and can chase away birds when they roam the fields."

Qing Mengzhu: "They don't eat vegetables, but they can destroy things. If they get excited, they might even ruin the vegetables. After all, not every dog can be as smart as Dharma Protector and Guard."

Zhao Hexi thought for a moment, "Raise an owl? The owl that lives in your bamboo grove is quite good at chasing away birds."

Qing Mengzhu: "Owls are protected animals, and they are nocturnal, only active at dawn and dusk. It's impossible for them to chase birds around the clock."

Zhao Hexi: "This won't work, that won't work, what should we do?"

Qing Mengzhu: "Let me think about it some more."

Author's Note:

See you tonight!

Chapter 124

After careful consideration, Qing Mengzhu and his team installed bird nets and sprayed bird repellent in the farmland.

Bird nets and bird repellents are very effective.

After using it, there were indeed far fewer birds coming to their fields to peck at the vegetable seedlings, and even if there were birds, they were often caught in the bird-catching nets.

The first thing they do every morning when they get to the fields is to rescue the various birds that are caught in the nets.

Birds, as wild animals, contain a lot of bacteria and viruses. They don't have the habit of being lawless and eating wild animals, so they always release the birds back into the wild.

However, they do not have the habit of eating birds. Some birds prey, such as eagles, foxes, and otters, will wait under the bird-catching nets, making the scene particularly fierce each time.

After visiting several times, the wild birds realized that their farmland was probably not a good place, and gradually they avoided it.

Zhao Hexi breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that the wild bird problem had finally been solved. "I thought we were going to have to fight these wild birds for a long time."

While wild birds do eat some insects, they consume far more vegetables, making commercial farming extremely vulnerable to their destructive effects.

Qing Mengzhu: "That's alright. If all else fails, I'll think of another way."

He has already checked out the Interstellar Mall in the past few days. The Interstellar Mall also has special bird-repelling devices, which are products from the technological dimension. They are somewhat like a combination of a small flying vehicle and bird repellent.

If their bird nets and bird repellents still can't get rid of these wild birds, he'll buy that product and ask Ming Chunxi to help him find a company to manufacture it.

That product should be pretty good, but it's quite expensive; one unit costs tens of thousands of Star Coins.

Qing Mengzhu guessed that this also included patent fees to prevent them from copying the product. He would rather not pay this fee unless it was absolutely necessary.

After discussing the birds, Zhao Hexi handed him the printed documents. "Now let's talk about fruit."

Qing Mengzhu: "What fruit? Didn't we grow strawberries?"

Zhao Hexi: "And the fruit trees too. Since we have a little free time now, we can plant more fruit trees."

Qing Mengzhu: "Let me see, blueberries, cherries, peaches, and bayberries—these are all common local fruits?"

Zhao Hexi: "That's right, didn't you say you wanted to grow fruit in the future? Anyway, growing fruit isn't as troublesome as growing vegetables, the management costs are relatively low, and a one-time investment can produce for several years. I think it's feasible."

Qing Mengzhu thought for a moment, "It seems we don't have any particularly famous fruits here?"

Their town also grows fruit, but it's just ordinary plums, peaches, prunes, and oranges. Because the quality is so-so, often no one picks the fruit when it's ripe—this year's plums are like that too, they don't fetch a good price, and people are unwilling to pay for the labor.

Zhao Hexi was optimistic. "It's alright, we'll select the best varieties ourselves, and once we grow them, we'll become famous."

Qing Mengzhu shook her head. "It's different."

Qing Mengzhu has now reached a basic level in the cultivation of chili peppers, tomatoes, and lotus seeds, and has her own understanding of cultivation.

In terms of cultivation, growers can certainly cultivate excellent varieties through seed selection and management, but the best varieties are definitely related to local climate and hydrological conditions.

The fact that they don't have any particularly famous fruits here suggests, to some extent, that this place isn't suitable for growing fruit.

Zhao Hexi: "So what do you want to do?"

Qing Mengzhu: "Let's find another place. See if there's any nearby that's suitable for growing that particular fruit?"

Zhao Hexi put away the documents. "I thought you only wanted to grow it in the village."

Qing Mengzhu: "Let's broaden our perspective. With logistics so advanced now, there's no need to limit ourselves to the village."

He modified the soil when he planted bamboo, and he knew exactly how much it cost and how much work he did.

Instead of going through all the trouble of renovations, it's better to find a more suitable location, which will likely yield better results with less effort.

After discussing it with Zhao Hexi, Qing Mengzhu asked Zhao Hexi to collect information to see if there were any suitable places nearby to grow fruit. At the same time, he also looked for suitable planting sites.

After Qing Mengzhu explained the relevant plans to Ming Chunxi asked, "What do you roughly want to plant? Do you have a target yet?"

Qing Mengzhu: "Not yet, I'm still considering it, but I might prefer summer and autumn fruits."

Qing Mengzhu explained, "We already have strawberries now. Strawberries are considered a winter and spring fruit, but we haven't secured any summer or autumn fruits yet. We hope to find a suitable place to grow summer and autumn fruits so we can pack them in vegetable packages and deliver them to our customers together."

Upon hearing this, Ming Chunxi asked, "Are mulberries considered summer and autumn fruits?"

Qing Mengzhu wasn't very familiar with mulberries. "Let me check. It seems mulberries are a fruit from late spring to early summer, so they're considered a summer fruit."

Ming Chunxi: "When we had a team building activity before, we did it once in the mountains of Jingnan. There were a lot of mulberries on the mountain there, big and black, and they tasted really good."

Qing Mengzhu suddenly remembered. "Is their silk particularly famous? When I was little, my mother had a silk dress made there."

Ming Chunxi: "Yes, they used to produce silk."

Qing Mengzhu: "Why aren't they producing anymore?"

Ming Chunxi: "Maybe it's because it's not profitable? Family silkworm farming can no longer compete with factories? Plus, many people have moved out of the mountains, so there aren't many people left to raise silkworms there now."

Qing Mengzhu: "That's also possible."

Reminded by Ming Chunxi, Qing Mengzhu immediately went online to check Jingnan silkworms in Jingnan.

The silkworm industry there was famous for a long time, until it declined in modern times.

He read a lot of information, which said that in addition to the fact that current manual breeding is not as good as factory breeding, silkworms are also too sensitive to various pesticides and insecticides. Sometimes, if someone who has sprayed floral water goes to the silkworm room, most of the silkworms will die.

Silkworm farming is risky and unprofitable, so people gradually stopped raising them.

Most of the people in Jingnan have moved out, with only some elderly people remaining in the villages and towns.

Because of the small population, the environment in Jingnan has become very good. Many guesthouses have opened there, and many tour groups go there for hiking.

According to the information, planting Jingnan seems feasible, but they need to go and investigate on-site to see for themselves how it goes.

They're not far from Jingnan; it only takes two hours to drive there.

Growing mulberries there should make harvesting more convenient, at least the cost of sending them by courier shouldn't increase much, and if anything happens, they can just drive over and resolve the issue easily.

Qing Mengzhu invited Ming Chunxi: "Would you like to go see it this weekend? If not, I'll go with He Xi on a weekday."

Ming Chunxi: "Go ahead, I'm free this week."

Qing Mengzhu enthusiastically planned, "Then we'll go on Saturday, come back on Sunday, stay overnight, and visit a few more villages."