NOVEL WEB Chapter 419: Hydroponic Farming System ( 2 )
When he heard Jin Xuyan's words, Xun Che's eyes lit up. He slapped his thigh and said, "That's right! The hydroponic method didn't need soil. We only need to prepare nutrient water solutions."
"There should be people who are familiar with farming. You can hire them and let them grow the crops using this method," Jin Xuyan added.
Xun Che thought for a moment and said, "Recently, we found an empty plot of land after we expanded the base. At first, we planned to build residences in that area. Now, I think we can use it for planting areas instead."
"Commander Xun, we found a lot of supplies and materials for hydroponic farming from the trip to the Capital. We can sell it to the base at a low price," Jiao Lizhi said.
Hearing this, Xun Che scratched his nose and said, "Comrade Jiao, I'm going to be honest with you. Right now, the base doesn't have many crystal cores left. So, I really can't pay you using crystal cores. So, can we pay you using points instead?"
Thinking about the members who would stay in the base and their families, Jiao Lizhi nodded and said, "Okay."
"Great! Comrade Jiao, how much do you sell for the materials?" Xun Che asked.
Jiao Lizhi thought for a moment and said, "I have enough materials to set up an area around 250 hectares for a vertical planting method with 30 layers. Besides this, I also obtained tools for ultra-high-efficiency methods."
"If we planted 200 hectares of area with rice, and lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, lentils, and strawberries took 10 hectares of area each, you can get around 1.8 million tons of rice annually."
"As for the other crops, the annual yield for lettuce is around 162,000 tons, tomatoes are around 144,000 tons, carrots are around 108,000 tons, lentils are around 22,500 tons, and strawberries are around 120,000 tons."
After a moment of pause, she added, "Of course, even with the efficiency of water recycling around 95%, you still need 65,140,000 liters of water daily if you want to reach the highest yield."
"But with this amount of food, even if you provide a balanced diet to the survivors, it could feed more than 7 million people based on the annual yield."
When she finished her words, Xun Che was stunned. Without even considering the amount of water needed daily, just the amount of food they could harvest in one year was more than enough to feed everyone for at least 10 years.
Added with the canned food and supplies they found outside, it wouldn't be a problem for them to sell the excess food to other bases at all.
Reaching this conclusion, he felt that paying a higher salary to hire more water-type ability-users was not a loss at all. After he made up his mind, he said, "Comrade Jiao, I want to buy all the materials from you. How much does it cost?"
Jiao Lizhi already knew that he would buy everything. After all, besides water and medicine, food was the most essential item in the apocalypse. Whoever had food was the boss.
"Two million crystal cores. You can convert them into points," Jiao Lizhi said with a smile.
The moment he heard the price, Xun Che felt his kidneys shake due to shock. He expected the price wouldn't be cheap, but he never expected it would be this expensive.
But considering the benefits this purchase would bring to the base and people for the next several decades, he gritted his teeth and agreed, "Deal!"
Seeing how he agreed without hesitation, Jiao Lizhi knew that she had made the right decision to support him in building this base.
"Since Commander Xun buys everything from me, I will provide you with enough water and nutrient solution, and seeds for the initial set-up," she said.
When she said this, both Jin Xuyan and Xun Che were taken aback. The amount of water needed to set up a 250-hectare hydroponic farming area was at least 14 billion liters of water, including the reservoir.
Holding onto her hand, Jin Xuyan said with a frown, "Ah Zhi, are you sure you can provide so much water?"
Jiao Lizhi smiled and whispered, "Brother Yan, during my free time, I usually create lots of water using my energy to train my ability. At this moment, I should have several billion of water stored in my space."
"With the addition of some pond water to increase the quality of water, and water I create later, at most, it will take four to five days."
Hearing this, Jin Xuyan went into silence for a moment before he said, "Let Qianfeng and Gu Shaoze help you."
"Okay," Jiao Lizhi agreed readily.
After they reached an agreement, Xun Che called Wen Hanli, and they discussed the location and the setting method for an hour before they left the office.
Instead of returning to their places, Jin Xuyan and Jiao Lizhi went to check the location.
They observed the location for two hours before they decided on digging a reservoir near the planting area for easy access and building a rooftop and wall to prevent the crops and water from being contaminated with zombie virus or acid rains.
When they finished drawing the rough design, Wen Hanli went to gather the metal-type, water-type, wood-type, and earth-type ability-users to help build the reservoir and the building.
Besides them, he also hired a large number of commoners to build the hydroponic farming system.
Due to the big movement, the news of the base trying to use hydroponic farming methods to plant crops spread across the entire base in less than two hours.
The news reached other bases and nearby survivor camps at sunset, thanks to the spies they planted in the Lin'an City Base.
When Jiao Lizhi and Jin Xuyan returned to their condominium, the sky had darkened. The moment they arrived at their home, the door across from their house was opened and Pei Yixie greeted them, "Brother, Sister-in-law, you are finally back."
"What's wrong?" Jin Xuyan asked.