Work Prophet
Chapter 96 - 12: Banquet Invitation

Chapter 96: Chapter 12: Banquet Invitation

Apart from planting legumes, the dry toilets designed by Li Yu could also be put to use.

These dry toilets not only prevented lizard people from defecating everywhere in Church Territory, maintaining a clean sanitary environment, but also collected feces and urine for agricultural use.

In the Bratis Continent, farmers also fertilized their land.

The fertilizers they used mainly consisted of livestock manure, in addition to lime and river mud, and farmers in coastal areas also spread seaweed into their fields.

However, compared to the vast land, the fertilizers they could collect seemed somewhat limited.

Usually, these fertilizers were thrown into the fields for winter crops, because the winter crops often grew better and could be sold at higher prices, while summer crops were generally let be.

Moreover, the methods used by these farmers to utilize the fertilizers were quite primitive; basically, they just dumped the collected livestock manure directly onto the fields. This often meant that the fertilizers were not completely absorbed by the soil and also tended to attract underground pests.

As for human feces, they were generally considered by the Church as impure objects, not allowed to be applied on farmland, with the reason being that they would contaminate the crops.

Li Yu and the Saturday behind him of course did not agree with this, so he definitely wanted to make use of human feces as well.

Not just those from Church Territory, Li Yu planned to personally visit several other nearby villages and talk to the villagers there, asking them to leave their feces behind, so he could send people to purchase them on a regular basis.

With just a little bit of money, he should be able to obtain a good amount of manure.

And Li Yu did not plan to apply these manures directly to the fields but intended to compost them first.

The so-called composting process involved mixing collected feces and urine with straw, weeds, fallen leaves, and pond mud, and then through the action of microbes, turning various complex organic nutrients into soluble nutrients and humus, while the high temperature during fermentation could also kill weeds, pathogens, and pests found in it.

Using it as base fertilizer not only could improve the soil, enhance soil utilization rate, but also greatly reduce soil-borne diseases.

There are thousands of methods for composting. In the north, composting is generally done inside a compost shed, covering the compost heap with tattered cloth or plastic sheeting. Without a compost shed, it’s not impossible to leave it outdoors, but exposure to sun and rain would inevitably result in a decrease in fertility.

In the south, more often they dig pits to ferment the manure, mixing urine, green manure, weeds, stalks, and pond mud in the pit and adding water for fermentation.

Which of these two composting methods was better was something Li Yu was not sure about; he decided to try them both, after all, it was just a matter of setting up sheds or digging pits.

All of these were means that would show immediate effects in increasing yields or improving efficiency upon use.

Beyond these, there was also something that might not show effects in the short term, but if persisted with over time, the benefits would grow increasingly significant, and it was also something easily overlooked—that was plant breeding.

Just like animals, plants in nature were also constantly evolving, although their evolutionary process was often not very eye-catching.

However, the same kind of plant could differ greatly after thousands of years.

For instance, corn from nine thousand years ago was only a tenth as large as today’s, with barely ten kernels of corn on a cob, and if you wanted to fill your stomach with such corn, you would probably need thousands of them.

Even more outrageous was the watermelon; five thousand years ago, watermelons were only 5cm long, had a shell as hard as that of a walnut, and underneath that shell were packed with fats and starch, making it quite challenging to suck any sweetness from them.

Although most of the plants on the Bratis Continent were familiar to Li Yu, there was still quite a discrepancy with those from modern society.

Wheat, oats, rye, the carrots that the Arias family had always been planting in large quantities—they were all far behind in both yield and taste compared to what Li Yu usually consumed.

Unfortunately, he could not bring seeds from another universe; otherwise, just planting one of them would have left no chance for the native crops of this universe.

However, Li Yu did not have to wait for thousands of years like in his original universe.

Since they had already learned about genetics in middle school biology classes, all they needed to do was to make targeted selections to artificially intervene and greatly accelerate the process.

The most famous example is hybrid rice.

The third-generation hybrid rice "San You Yi Hao," developed by Yuan Longping, known as the father of hybrid rice, had its average yield per mu for early and late rice combined even surpassed 1500 kilograms, truly a biological miracle!

With just 7% of the world’s arable land, he managed to feed 22% of the population in just a few decades.

Unfortunately, there is no rice on Bratis Road, and finding male sterile lines is not that easy, so Li Yu could not simply copy the work.

But he had always taken breeding very seriously.

In fact, soon after arriving at Green Field, Li Yu had already started on this task. He had Miss Rabbit help him find four young men and women.

One of the screening criteria given at the time was that their families should be engaged in farming.

Later, Li Yu also taught them Arabic numerals, specifically to facilitate their statistical research in the future.

Not long ago, Li Yu had already given them their first task, which was to select the crops with the highest yields, best qualities, or those that could resist pests and thrive in adverse environments during the harvest.

Collect their seeds and record their characteristics.

Li Yu would then create several experimental fields on Church Territory specifically to cultivate these distinctive crops, continuously selecting from their progeny those plants with other excellent characteristics, continuing to breed them, and promoting them at the appropriate time.

This process was somewhat like generating "item attributes" in games; it required patience and a bit of luck to generate "legendary attributes."

However, once one managed to get a good "attribute," such as cold resistance, drought resistance, or salt and alkali resistance, and successfully preserved it, it could definitely be highly profitable.

...

The agricultural revolution initiated by Li Yu was bound to have a profound impact on the civilization of the Bratis Continent.

However, like all great revolutions, it did not attract much attention at the beginning.

People’s focus remained on the influential figures, lingering on their decadent or mundane daily lives. The loves and grievances of the nobles, each and every move could stir up plenty of discussions.

And if one were to talk about the most influential person in the entire western realm recently, it would have to be Ireya, the new Family Head of the Arias family.

The Arias family, located in a remote and impoverished area, had always been low-key and had not produced any astonishing talents or notable deeds for a long time.

But recently, they had been behaving out of character, first because of the Family Head election which involved the Marquis Kuren, then by making the election process public, which was full of twists and turns, and even had a mysterious Foreigner performing miracles, capturing a lot of attention.

It was said that after the two candidates returned to their territory, a battle ensued. Just when the outcome seemed decided and everyone thought the drama was about to end, Ireya, who had just taken office, stirred up another climax.

The Family Head of Arias urgently requested aid from Marquis Kuren and other western nobles overnight, claiming to have suffered a large-scale attack by lizard people and pleading for their help to save the innocent people and family members trapped in Teacup Castle.

But before the families could understand the situation, just a day later, Ireya withdrew the request for help, stating that the crisis had been resolved.

When they received the letter, many Family Heads were baffled, unsure what the writer intended. And yet, half a month later, it seemed the new Family Head of Arias had just remembered that they hadn’t yet hosted a banquet after inheriting the territory.

Thus, another letter was sent to the western nobles, inviting them to their territory as guests.