Chapter 175: Produce Ourselves
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Rundi
“Growing Carm Trees?” Sun Jiao thought for a second before a troubled look appeared on her face.
“Is there a problem? We could probably buy the sapling on the market. If we can’t, I’ll get Zhou Guoping to think of other ways.” Jiang Chen didn’t understand.
“No, it’s not the problem with tree saplings, tree saplings are easy to obtain.” Seeing that Jiang Chen seemed to be misinterpreting her meaning, Sun Jiao forced a bitter smile. “The problem is growing them.”
“Growing? I remember these mutated plants were able to survive in the apocalypse’s soil, is there any problems?” Jiang Chen raised his eyebrows.
Typical crops could not grow in the nuclear and biological contaminated soil, but mutated plants that survived the war could. Logically, anything that could grow in the Sixth Street, the Fishbone base could grow the same thing.
Hearing Jiang Chen’s question, Sun Jiao facepalmed as she began patiently explaining the fundamentals.
“To grow anything on the wasteland, there are two factors to consider. One is radiation level, and two is soil contamination level.
As long as there is material exchange with the outside world, it can not avoid the impact of radiation. There is nothing in the apocalypse that is free of radiation. Not even the drinking water treated by the automatic water purifying equipment. It doesn’t negatively affect humans because of the existence of the EP and special medication that reduces the radiation level to below the danger threshold. However, plants are not so lucky.
To ensure the planted apple does not mutate, the radiation level must be controlled to below 1. If the radiation level is above 5, even normal seeds buried into the ground will become abnormal. With the Sixth Street’s technology, it is able to control the radiation level to around 3, which certainly reflects how valuable the fruit cans you brought are.
But the mutated plants that survived through natural selection are not that delicate. Their resistance to radiation is quite high. Take Carm trees for example. As long as radiation levels are below 40, it can grow normally. Most of the places on the wasteland have a threshold value between 10-20. As long as it’s not in a nuclear crater, the radiation level will not reach 40.
The soil contamination is relatively easier to solve since soilless planting technology is incredibly mature in the apocalypse.
Therefore, the plantations in the apocalypse can be divided into two kinds.
One is the kind that uses soilless technology to grow crops.
There is a distinct advantage to growing crops this way is that it can easily control soil contamination, and the production area would also be greater compared to soil plants. The disadvantage is also evident. Mainly being the high cost. To use soilless technology to produce industrial raw materials like Carm tree sap would undoubtedly bankrupt the business. It normally would be used to grow luxury goods, such as not completely mutated fruit.
The signature building in the Sixth Street includes a soilless plantation tower. Of course, because of the appearance of fruit cans, this industry was on the brink of bankruptcy.
The other kind is normal soil plantation.
Simple and straightforward, planting the seeds and watering them would yield plants. Whether it would be done by human labor with scythe spreading the seeds or mechanical plantation, it would be up to the preference of the owner. It is used to mostly produce non-expensive mutated plants, such as the industrially used Carm tree sap, and different flavors of tobacco…
The advantage of this method is the low cost, but it has a strict requirement for the quality of the soil.
Take Carm trees for example. Only plants with soil contamination less than ten can be used to grow these trees. This type of soil is also extremely rare on the wasteland, so Carm tree sap production is not high even on the Sixth Street. Previously, this raw material had minimal demand, but during this period, demand far exceeded supply.”
“Couldn’t we just purchase soilless equipment?” Jiang Chen was refusing to give up.
“Using soilless equipment to grow Carm trees, how much crystals would you use to obtain one ton of Carm tree sap.” Sun Jiao facepalmed feeling helpless.
[This is problematic now.]
Jiang Chen’s eyebrows began to twist as he fell into deep thought.
But then, he suddenly remembered Lin Lin.
[Yes! The Garden of Eden Project!
If it is possible to change the local biosphere, there is no reason there is no technology to change the condition of the soil!]
…
“Did you think of something?” Sun Jiao looked confusedly as Jiang Chen’s always changing expression.
“Mhmm.” The tip of Jiang Chen’s mouth curled up, “Looks like the “little slave” in our mansion is finally going to be useful.”
Sun Jiao instantly understood as a sign of joy also flashed across her face.
“What? Reduce soil contamination? Why should I help you?” With fingers holding onto the test tube, the smooth and silky silver hair hid the disdained expression on Lin Lin’s face as she said without any consideration.
The one red and one black pupil were the same as when he left before. It seemed that she became used to having an odd creature living inside her body.
“Because you need to eat,” Jiang Chen let out a sigh as he said righteously.
He was already becoming bored of looking at her humiliated expression, but this girl seemed to think otherwise?
“Do you feel great about being bullied now?” Seeing the slightly sad Lin Lin drawing on the touch board, Jiang Chen said helplessly.
With such a gorgeous face, she had to have such a terrible expression.
“Go die.” With her finger finis.h.i.+ng the last line, Lin Lin gave Jiang Chen a hard stare and popped out her tongue to give him a scary face.
“What is this?” Jiang Chen ignored her action as he got closer to the touch board.”
“Ahem, foolish-” Lin Lin straightened her back while the tip of her lips curved up.
“Ahem.”
“Ahh! Enough! Fine, I’ll say it.” Lin Lin pouted her mouth in sadness as she touched the screen. “The first step is to neutralize the soil. The second step is to use ion membranes to permeate out the heavy metal ions, the third step is…”
“Hold on, what is an ion membrane?” Jiang Chen interrupted her as he was completely lost.
“A thing that can easily filter through the ion particles should be pretty common,” Lin Lin said nonchalantly.
[What. I have never heard about this before.]
Jiang Chen suddenly recalled that Lin Lin had always stayed in the research facility, for she wouldn’t be so clueless about the situation of the apocalypse otherwise. In this case, the “common” in her mind probably meant common in the lab.
[Did not think this through…]
“Let me first ask, how many steps does this process include?” Jiang Chen was feeling speechless.
“Not that many, only 24 steps. I have taken a sample of the soil here before, and the contamination level is 68. It’s hard to believe in a land this toxic weeds can grow.” When the topic revolved around her field of interest, Lin Lin became keener.
“Does your lab not consider costs when you experiment?” Jiang Chen ridiculed.”
“Costs? Of course,” Lin Lin disagreed.
“Then tell me after 24 steps, what is the cost?”
Lin Lin looked at Jiang Chen strangely.
“Are you misinterpreting something? is not a soil purification project. Since it is a subproject of s.p.a.ce colonization, then why do we need to understand how to treat the pollution on Earth. Using organics as well as minerals on other planets, we could produce soil. It is too troublesome to purify it. ”
“Produce soil?”
“That’s right. It is not difficult to produce soil. At least easier than was.h.i.+ng the ground. But since all the “finished goods” are contaminated here, it would not be easy to find raw ingredients to form clean soil.” Lin Lin let out a sigh.
Produce soil? Other planets?
Jiang Chen suddenly smacked his own head as he cursed in his mind.
[F*ck, why didn’t I think of this before. It is not that difficult. I can interdimensional travel! If I can carry back food, how difficult would it be to transport a couple of hundred cubic meters of soil?]
Since the problem was solved, Jiang Chen didn’t plan to ask further, so he changed the topic.
“Okay, let’s not talk about this… Oh, did you finish the task I gave you?”