As soon as Xu Guangqi and the others were sent away, Wang Chengen stepped forward to report to Chongzhen that Wei Liangqing had been waiting outside the palace for an hour.

Su Ningbo, who established the Academy of Agricultural Sciences under the order of Chongzhen, after more than a year of running around, his body that originally looked a little obese is now no longer visible.

Looking at the dark and thin man in front of him, but his complexion seemed healthy, Zhu Youzhen finally recognized that Wei Liangqing was still relatively diligent in his work this year.

After looking at Wei Liangqing's appearance, Zhu Youzhen turned his head to Lu Qi and said, "Get a stool for Su Ningbo, and get him some tea by the way, I want to listen carefully, his work report for the past year." Well, don't let anyone bother me until the conversation is over. ”

Lu Qi and Wang Chengen both responded, and hurriedly went to move stools and make tea. Wei Liangqing's originally trembling mood suddenly relaxed a lot under Chongzhen's cordial greeting.

After thanking Lu Qi and Wang Chengen, he sat down cautiously and reported the results of his work in the past year in Chongzhen's inquiry.

After the establishment of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, the earliest agricultural seed cultivation bases were established in Shunyi and Liangxiang, and then he set up a scientific research base in Jinan, Shandong, Kaifeng, Henan, Huguang, Changsha, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Hainan Island in accordance with Chongzhen's instructions.

The mission of these bases is, first, to collect good local seeds; the second is to compare the yield changes of improved varieties in different places and climatic conditions; The third is to make a demonstration to the local area, so as to promote the improved varieties cultivated by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

These bases are all over the north and south of the river, and Wei Liangqing alone naturally can't run away, so the Academy of Agricultural Sciences is divided into several teams to manage these bases, and Wei Liangqing himself is in charge of the most remote Hainan and Guangzhou.

In the past year, although there has been no breakthrough in the research results of hybrid varieties of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, it has made remarkable achievements in the task of collecting improved varieties from all over the world. There are 39 types of wheat seeds, 66 types of rice seeds, and 24 types of cotton seeds.

Moreover, there is finally a good start in the relationship between fertilizer, grain income, and soil quality. For example, struvite collected from islands will be more effective if it is treated with dilute sulfuric acid.

At the same time, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences also realized that struvite has a small effect on limestone and saline-alkali soil in the north, but it has a significant effect on silty soil in the south, and this fertilizer has a significant effect on the yield of soybean, milk vetch and fruit trees. In a test field in the south, 20 kg of treated struvite fertilizer was applied to one acre of soybeans, a 20 percent increase in yield compared to the field without fertilizer.

According to the use of fertilizers in the past year, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences has been faintly aware that the growth of plants is related to the pH and nutrient content of the soil. The morphological difference between crops with struvite and struvite on them makes them think that perhaps the so-called fertilization is to replenish the plant with an element that is lacking in the soil.

Zhu Youzhen listened to Wei Liangqing's report, seemed very serious, and from time to time recorded something on the paper in front of him with a pencil. After listening to Wei Liangqing's report for nearly an hour, Zhu Youzhen felt that he had gained a lot.

Farming was not his specialty, either now or in his previous life, and his knowledge of agriculture was limited to cultivating good seeds, establishing a good network of irrigation canals, and finally applying adequate fertilizer.

What the Academy of Agricultural Sciences is doing now is to bring together all the useful technologies and improved varieties of agriculture in various places, and then carry out popularization and research. Originally, this was what Xu Guangqi was doing, but after the establishment of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Xu Guangqi quickly handed over the information he had collected and various agricultural manuscripts that he had researched and summarized, so that the Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Shanglin Yuan Supervisor could rearrange and summarize.

As early as 20 years ago, Xu Guangqi was already aware of the huge pressure on the Ming Dynasty's finances caused by the gap between the north and the south in agriculture. He believes that only by changing the backward agricultural technology in the north of the Ming Dynasty and enabling the agriculture in the north to achieve self-sufficiency can we fundamentally solve the increasingly heavy pressure of water transportation and the situation of grain transportation from the south to the north and silver from the north to the south.

In the second year of the Apocalypse, Xu Guangqi returned to his hometown after illness, and the crown belt was idle. He tried to grow crops in his hometown and collected agricultural information, hoping to compile a large agricultural book as a reference book for the imperial court to govern agriculture.

However, after Chongzhen's accession to the throne, he was quickly reinstated, and he was responsible for the preparation of the official book and the Royal Academy of Sciences, which made it difficult to complete the manuscript.

When he learned that the Academy of Agricultural Sciences was established, Chongzhen intended to collect agricultural technology and improved varieties throughout the country to improve the agricultural level of the Ming Dynasty, so he contributed this manuscript.

Xu Guangqi also recommended his student Chen Zilong to assist the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in sorting out and researching the affairs of agricultural technology. Chen Zilong is a native of Songjiang Huating, Nanzhili, and his family has been farming for generations, and it was only when his father officially entered the gentry class.

When Xu Guangqi tried to grow crops in his hometown, he received a lot of assistance from this disciple, so he felt that this student could finish his manuscript well, and by the way, supervise the Academy of Agricultural Sciences not to be superfluous.

Xu Guangqi's idea was very good, but he forgot that his disciple had always hated Wei Zhongxian, so how could he cooperate with Wei Liangqing in a friendly manner.

If it weren't for Wei Liangqing's retreat and complete delivery of the affairs of the Shanghai Agricultural Sciences Branch to Chen Zilong, no longer interfering with Shanghai's affairs, and Xu Guangqi personally wrote a letter to warn Chen Zilong that all the affairs studied by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences are related to the national economy and people's livelihood, it is estimated that the Shanghai Agricultural Sciences Branch will be overthrown as a eunuch party.

After a year of experiments and collation by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in various places, many errors in Xu Guangqi's manuscript have been corrected. About three-tenths of this over-archaic knowledge has been subtracted, and four-tenths of new technologies and new research have been added.

This book was also named by Chongzhen himself as "The Complete Book of Agricultural Administration", and the book is divided into 78 volumes, with a total of 12 items. The Tripitaka Factory, now renamed the Imperial City Printing Factory, has begun typesetting and printing, and is expected to print 3,000 copies for the first time, which will be promoted to various places in February and March next year.

And Wei Liangqing also reported to Chongzhen in the end, he encountered frustrations in the research of hybrid rice, although Chongzhen told him the method of three-line hybridization, but this year he followed the officials of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences in the south to be busy, and he just figured out what self-pollination and cross-pollination are.

For this kind of setback, Zhu Youjian was not disappointed, even if Yuan Longping cultivated hybrid rice, it was also based on the development of modern agricultural science and technology for more than 100 years. In the 17th century, knowledge of botany, both in the East and in the West, was in a reckless age.

The understanding of botany in the East and the West focuses on practical questions such as what it is useful for, how it can be cultivated, and so on. However, the development of plants and the relationship between species are still in a state of partial understanding.

Perhaps the plants that humans know most about in this era are probably crops such as wheat and rice. But this understanding is limited to very superficial appearances. Of course, with the end of the 30 years of the Wars of Religion, doubting the natural order was doubting God, and after this stale Catholic idea was brought down and torn apart by the Protestants, the rapid development of natural science based on maritime trade made European botanical understanding far behind the East.

Wei Liangqing's failure report only broke Chongzhen's luck mentality, making him understand that without basic knowledge as a theoretical basis, it is as difficult as letting an elephant pass through the nose of a needle if he wants to take the scientific shortcut to the south.

"It's not a failure, maybe I'm too impatient, and some things obviously can't be reached in one step. In my opinion, the Academy of Sciences should focus on the study of the growth process of rice first, and we must always have enough understanding of it to study how to improve better varieties, right? Zhu Youzhen thought for a moment, and then comforted Wei Liangqing, who was a little frightened.

Wei Liangqing didn't understand what Chongzhen meant, the personnel of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences who studied hybrid rice were all experienced old farmers who were personally selected by him, and there were also Shanglinyuan supervisors who were familiar with agricultural affairs. These people are quite familiar with farming, and even by looking at the growth of rice, they can estimate the yield per mu.

In the eyes of the emperor, didn't these people know enough about rice cultivation? When he was at a loss, Zhu Youzhen seemed to have sensed his confusion, so he went on to explain to him: "What I said is not only how to grow rice. Rather, they are studied from a different perspective. ”

"Another perspective?" Wei Liangqing asked a little confused.

Zhu Youzhen pondered for a while and said: "Just like the army of the Ming Dynasty, in the past, the imperial court only paid attention to who the commander of this army was, how many soldiers there were, how many young and strong among them, and how much food it would cost a year.

But the court never thought about what the names of these soldiers were, where they came from, how many words they knew, what they liked to eat, what religion they believed, whether they had any relatives and friends with each other, what they had done before joining the army, how many people they had in their family, and if he was injured or killed, what would his family depend on to survive, and so on.

It's the same with rice, you shouldn't just focus on its yield and the conditions in which it is grown. It is also necessary to distinguish how many types of rice there are, and how they have developed to such a big difference today. To put it simply, it is to study its morphology, classification, physiology, ecology, distribution, occurrence, heredity, evolution and other issues.

Of course, the object of study is not necessarily only rice, but all plants can be used as research objects, and only the more research objects selected, the greater the amount of information we can obtain, and the more likely it is to touch the bypass..."