Xu Chen walked near the vegetable garden, but did not see the two people. While he was wondering, he heard the sound of two people laughing and chatting from inside.
"Your Daga!"
"Yours is big too!"
"Is it better to mate with the bigger ones?"
"I don't know!"
Although he couldn't see it, Xu Chen unknowingly made up his mind that two little female savages were stripping off their clothes and competing for breasts. He hesitated and slowly moved closer, wanting to take a peek, but he didn't expect the two little wolves to get into the melon with howls.
in the frame.
When Ye He and the little witch heard this, they turned around and saw Xu Chen tiptoeing over with a stick in hand and a sneaky look on his face.
"Chen Ga, come quickly!" Ye shouted happily.
Seeing that the two of them had not taken off their clothes, Xu Chen's face instantly returned to calm. He walked over with a smile and asked, "What are you two doing here secretly? Be careful of poisonous snakes!"
Ye grabbed Xu Chen's arm nonchalantly and said, "We didn't come here secretly, we came here to see the flowers mating!"
Xu Chen couldn't laugh or cry when he heard this.
The little witch bowed her head in shame and whispered: "We want to see how the thorn melons separate male and female, and how they mate and grow melons?"
Xu Chen looked at the thorn melon vines covered with melon stands and the flowers that had begun to bloom sporadically. He smiled and shook his head and said, "The thorn melon vines should not be divided into male and female, but the flowers should be divided into male and female. If you observe carefully,
You can tell right away that some flowers have a small melon growing behind them, which is the female flower, but some flowers have nothing behind them, and those should be male flowers!"
After Xu Chen reminded them, the two quickly took a closer look at the surrounding melon vines. Sure enough, they found that the situation was similar to what Xu Chen said. Some flowers were larger, with a small swollen thorn at the back, while some flowers were slightly swollen.
There is nothing behind the smaller one.
The two girls were as excited as if they had discovered a new world, looking for male and female flowers among the melon stands.
"The seeds of thorn melon can germinate, but the male and female flowers don't grow together. How can they mate?"
The little witch looked at two different flowers far apart with confusion on her face.
"Yes, you can't mate!" Ye nodded quickly.
Xu Chen smiled and pointed to the bees and butterflies flying nearby and said, "It's the bees and butterflies that help them mate."
The two girls were stunned for a moment.
"If you look carefully, both male and female flowers have filamentous stamens in the middle of the flowers. There is pollen on the stamens of male flowers. When bees and butterflies collect nectar, the pollen will stick to their legs.
The female flowers go back and forth to collect nectar, and the pollen will stick to the stamens of the female flowers, and the mating of the male and female flowers is completed!"
"Fuck, it's so easy!" Ye couldn't help but say a curse word.
Xu Chen's face darkened and he flicked her forehead.
The little witch turned her head and giggled, twitching her shoulders, then blushed and whispered: "Why can pollen mate? Do all flowers have pollen?"
Xu Chen thought for a moment and nodded and said: "That should be the case. The flowers should be mated through pollen, so that the seeds can germinate."
"What if there are no bees and butterflies? Can it be done like last time with the vines and fruit flowers?"
The little witch asked curiously, and it seemed that this question had been lingering in her mind for a long time.
Seeing that the little witch was so interested in new knowledge, Xu Chen thought that since he was free today, he could popularize the knowledge of plant pollination for her. After all, this is also a very profound knowledge related to agricultural production, and the big witch also has the ability to spread knowledge.
and the responsibility of popularizing education.
These are basic scientific knowledge. Regardless of whether they can understand it or not, they will inspire mankind to follow this path in the future, so as not to follow the obscure and mysterious theories of China's Yin Yang, Five Elements and Bagua.
Correct guidance will speed up the upgrading of civilization.
Once human beings develop in the wrong direction of the evolutionary tree, the cost of going astray will be huge.
Perhaps at a certain period of time, due to different cognitions, wrong theories will bring considerable room for development, but once they reach a dead end, evolution will stagnate or even regress, and eventually become an abandoned species.
Although science is not omnipotent, especially in this primitive era, metaphysical theories such as theology and Yin Yang and the Five Elements are easier for people to understand and more convenient to guide human development, but the ultimate development of mankind still proves that science is better than theology and five elements.
Metaphysics is more in line with the direction of development and closer to explaining nature and revealing the truth of the universe.
Therefore, Xu Chen has the responsibility, ability and obligation to slowly instill scientific and cultural knowledge in the development of production and life, so that human beings can walk on the right path, instead of crossing the river by groping for stones with their eyes closed.
Because mankind has already crossed this river, he just needs to take out the correct theory and use it.
In the vegetable garden, Xu Chen pointed to the flowers on the thorn melon vine and began to educate the two little female savages on the flower structure and pollination of plants.
Although he remembers it vaguely, he grew up in a rural area and has a relatively clear understanding of the growth habits of various fruits and vegetables, and can roughly distinguish male and female flowers.
In addition, Xu Chen also knew that plant pollination is roughly divided into two categories.
One is to rely on insect pollination, which is basically used for fruits, vegetables and various flowers and plants.
The other is to rely on wind pollination, mainly grains, wild grasses and other herbaceous plants.
Wind pollination relies on quantity, and plants grow in large areas. When the wind blows, the pollen flies all over the sky, so the female flowers are attracted one after another, and they are forced to mate successfully.
The flowers of entomophilous plants have a common characteristic, that is, the flowers are generally larger and brighter in color, and can release a special fragrance, making it easier to attract bees, butterflies, and even other insects and birds to collect nectar.
Moreover, the size and structure of male and female flowers are generally different.
The thorn melon flowers in front of me are very obvious.
The male flowers are slightly smaller, the stamens in the middle are more concentrated, and the filaments are the same size, but the female flowers are larger, and the stamens in the middle obviously have an enlarged style and no filaments.
Although these are all biology lessons in junior high school, Xu Chen has long forgotten some of them, but now after careful observation, he can slowly recall a lot of them.
Although these contents may not be very accurate, for Ye and the little witch, they already belong to the category of spiritual knowledge. After careful observation and comparison with what Xu Chen said, they basically believed that this was indeed the case.
In order to make the two girls believe in this knowledge even more, Xu Chen also picked a few flowers from both male and female flowers, broke off the petals and stamens, carefully observed the structure and explained the process of pollen transfer.
The simplest thing is to take out the stamens of the male flowers and gently touch the pollen to the style of the female flowers.
Although the pollen is very small, you can still see it if you look closely.
There are not only thorn melons in the vegetable garden, but there are also several kinds of melons and vegetables, but they are all wild varieties, and they are simply planted by sowing them together.
Xu Chen had nothing to do anyway, so he took Little Witch and Ye to observe all the plants that were beginning to bloom. Not only did he talk about pollination knowledge, but he also talked about a lot of daily vegetable garden management and variety improvement techniques.
The improvement of vegetables and fruits, like food crops, has taken a long time.
The vegetables in front of you are the most primitive and ancient varieties.
For example, things like thorn melons, some look like cucumbers, some look like cantaloupes, and some look like pumpkins or other melons that Xu Chen has never seen before. Later generations have never seen them at all, and they will either become extinct or evolve into something else.
style.
This kind of primitive and ancient species all have a common characteristic, that is, strong vitality, fast and domineering growth, very strong rhizome development, but few and small fruits.
The purpose of their growth is not to be eaten by humans and animals, but to protect themselves from flowering and bearing fruits as quickly as possible and leaving seeds behind.
If you want these plants to produce bigger, more fruit with better taste, you need to continuously select and even hybridize during planting.
Keep those that grow quickly and bloom and have large fruits as seeds, and continue to cultivate them year after year, and they will slowly become a common fruit and vegetable.
In the vegetable garden, as Xu Chen kept proposing the best methods for cultivating these vegetables and fruits, the little witch was extremely excited. Her eyes were shining and she kept nodding her head to express that she had remembered Xu Chen's words, and she would lead people to take care of the vegetable garden in the future.
, follow Xu Chen’s method.
In fact, Xu Chen has been doing this process of optimal breeding.
His experimental field is now in its fourth year.
The yield of the experimental field has always been the highest. Everyone in the tribe knows it, especially the little witch and Ye.
Ye is responsible for the warehousing registration of farmland every year, and these data will be handed over to Xu Chen and the little witch for review as soon as possible.
Because solving the food crisis is the tribe's top priority right now, Xu Chen's main attention is on farmland cultivation and seed improvement. As for fruits and vegetables, he really doesn't have much energy to do it at the moment.
However, he didn't just ignore it on weekdays. He opened a vegetable garden in front of and behind the house to sow thorn melons and various commonly eaten wild vegetables. This was all done under Xu Chen's guidance.
After several years of getting familiar with each other, Xu Chen no longer needs to be reminded to grow vegetables. A group of older women such as Muba and Amu will arrange it every spring, so the front and back of the house are scattered here and there.
Planted everywhere.
If it weren't for the fact that these vegetable varieties were completely different from those of later generations, and the yield of melons and vegetables was extremely large, just looking at the vegetable garden, one would have thought that we were in a real rural area.
It's a pity that these melons and vegetables are of no use. A single melon vine can only produce a few melons from spring to autumn. If you want to eat, you have to rely on the number of plants. Fortunately, as the size of the vegetable garden increases,
As the crops grow older, more and more of these melons and vegetables are planted, and both varieties and quantities gradually become more abundant.
Xu Chen doesn't have much interest in improving vegetables and fruits at the moment, let alone has no time.
On the other hand, if the little witch who has been doing nothing all day is willing to take on this task, the speed of improvement will definitely be accelerated a lot.
Moreover, as a big witch, the little witch can quickly spread this knowledge through gatherings.
Therefore, Xu Chen thought more deeply and became more serious and responsible. He carefully explained to the little witch some of the vegetable cultivation and improvement methods he knew, such as leveling, raising, fertilizing, removing insects, tipping, and branch pressing.
Knowledge on transplanting, cutting, grafting, etc.
Although the explanation is very complicated, he believes that as long as the little witch remembers it and slowly puts it into practice, the vegetable garden will change greatly in a few years.
The simplest thing to say is pinching. It seems simple, but it is a very important means to increase crop yields.
Take the thorn melon for example. The main vine grows very aggressively and quickly. It can grow to tens of meters long in one spring, covering an area of hundreds of square meters. The leaves of the wide and thorny cane are densely packed. Even if the thorn melon grows out of it, it is very difficult to pick.
Trouble, now that the melon trellises are being built, these thorny melon vines are like taking a powerful pill. In just half a month, these vines are full.
Planting only one or two thorn melons in a vegetable garden can basically cover the whole garden, but the fruits produced will be sparse.
But if the main vine is cut off in advance, a large amount of growth hormone will stimulate the growth of more side buds, and these side buds are the main force for flowering and fruiting.
Almost everyone in rural areas knows this little knowledge, and Xu Chen even helped with it when he was a child.
Not only melons and vegetables need to be pinched, but also fruit trees need to cut off the main branches when they are very young, so that they can grow side branches that are easier to bear fruit.
In order to make the little witch believe what he said, Xu Chen chose two nests of thorn melon vines and cut off the main vines at the right location.
Seeing the good melon vines being broken, the two little female savages felt very sad, but their blind trust in Xu Chen made them full of hope.
If what Xu Chen said is true, then this thorn melon tree should be able to grow more vines, bloom more flowers, and bear more fruits.
However, this process takes more time to verify.
After this lively, interesting and profound nature lesson ended, the little witch felt that she had finally found the direction to understand the will of the gods. She began to spend all day in the vegetable garden observing the growth and flowering of plants, and even picked up a hoe and carefully followed Xu Chen's teachings.
The knowledge began to be put into practice, and every day's observations and labor were recorded.