Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Facing Dong Zhichao's "plea", Li Long shook his head and said:
"I can't give you a definite answer. First of all, other people are also charging 3.5 yuan, so your price is not competitive.

Secondly, I don’t know how much melon seeds I can receive this year, and I don’t know how much the other party wants, so I can’t say for sure.

Of course, we can also cooperate in other areas. We not only produce pumpkin seeds, but also sunflowers. The sunshine hours in northern Xinjiang are long and the sun is abundant. The quality of the sunflowers is also very high. Do you need them?"

When deciding to plant cash crops last year and at the beginning of this year, Li Long had not expected that melon seeds could be exported beyond northern Xinjiang.

So many people in the team planted sunflowers at that time, but those who had a good relationship with the Li family did not plant them. They all planted flower sunflowers instead, including Tao Dayong.

Since Li Long suggested it at that time, he thought that he had to sell Huakui and not let the people who worked with him suffer.

Of course, he could also buy these sunflowers at a high price, but he would have to sell them out. Wouldn't it be better if he could find a merchant who would buy them at a high price directly from the mouth?

"Sunflower?" Dong Zhichao shook his head and said, "We don't lack sunflowers. There are many people growing sunflowers in the mainland, and the price is not high..."

Before he finished speaking, Ye Lanlan pulled him, and Dong Zhichao finally realized what was going on. He hurriedly added:
"But we'll see. If the quality of the sunflowers you produce is really good, I'll definitely buy them."

"I wonder what the purchase price of sunflowers is over there?"

"Special grade is two dollars, but to be honest, not many can reach the special grade." Dong Zhichao is very familiar with this aspect. "Generally speaking, it's one dollar to one dollar and fifty cents - I'll convert it into kilograms for you."

"Well, OK. It will take another half a month. After half a month, the sunflowers will be harvested and the melon seeds will be harvested. I will let you see them then."

This is to send the guests away. Although Dong Zhichao was still a little unwilling, he had no choice. There was no stock at the moment, and Li Long did not say he would die, so he was still worried.

After leaving the purchasing station, Dong Zhichao and Ye Lanlan returned to the county guesthouse and continued to think of ways.

"Lanlan, thanks to you for reminding me just now, otherwise I would have rejected Huakui directly, and I guess there would be no chance of getting melon seeds." Although Dong Zhichao would occasionally put on airs in front of Li Long, he was quite humble in front of Ye Lanlan. He reflected and said, "But we really don't lack Huakui."

"Let's wait and see." Ye Lanlan has also grown up in the past two months. She said, "I think we should wait and see. If the sunflowers really reach the special grade, then we can collect some. It would be even better if we can also collect some melon seeds.

And now I find that people in our province are actually quite curious about things from northern Xinjiang, especially local specialties. If we really buy sunflowers, we can print an extra line on the packaging bag, saying that the sunflowers come from northern Xinjiang. I believe it will definitely attract some curious people to taste it. "

"Well, your idea is good. I will call the factory later and tell them about this." Dong Zhichao felt that Ye Lanlan's suggestion was very useful.

Although in the eyes of most people in the province, northern Xinjiang is poor and backward, everyone admits that the local specialties there are good things, the most obvious of which are raisins.

If we put the logo of northern Xinjiang specialty on the packaging bag of this sunflower, maybe it will attract a lot of people!
Of course, they did not just wait in the guesthouse. There was still half a month from now to the melon harvest, so they planned to visit several nearby counties, including the Corps’ farm, to see if there was any hope for a turnaround.

After seeing off Dong Zhichao and Ye Lanlan, Li Long walked towards the front door. There were many people queuing to sell things. This time, he didn't see the Tie family. Li Long saw that Sun Jiaqiang didn't seem to care much and was just helping out there seriously. So he didn't disturb them and left the purchasing station and went back to the big yard.

In the afternoon, Li Long drove a jeep to Team 4.

Big brother Li Jianguo was plowing the fields during this period, driving the Dongfanghong 75 track tractor in great enthusiasm. He was not there when Li Long came over.

So Li Long drove his jeep to the homes of Xie Yundong, Tao Daqiang, Liang Dacheng, Jia Weidong and others, and notified them one by one to come to Li's house in the evening to discuss things.

Then Li Long returned to the Li family.

In early September, most of the vegetables in the garden have changed seasons. There are not many tomatoes left, and they are not picked because we need fresh ones for cooking every day. The chili peppers have also been picked and most of them have been dried into pepper skins. There are strings of red chili peppers hanging on the pillars and clotheslines in the yard, which look very beautiful.

The fields of sword beans and cowpeas have been cleared, and the family has dried a lot of them, which will be better for stewing meat in winter. After Li Qingxia turned the fields and watered them, he sprinkled cabbage seeds on them. At this time, the cabbage has grown quite big.

Li Long entered the field and saw a few small melons still on the vines climbing along the southern ditch. He went over and picked one, holding it in one hand and knocking it with a clenched fist in the other. The melon cracked open and a rich sweet fragrance filled the air.

I shook off the seeds inside and started eating it with my hands - the melon tasted really good.

Fragrant and sweet.

After eating two, Li Long stopped and walked over to pick a tomato, but then he thought better of it. After eating such a sweet melon, if he ate a tomato, it would probably only taste sour.

Du Chunfang, who was cooking in the yard, saw Li Long was still looking for food, so she said:

"Don't look for it anymore. We'll have dinner soon. If you eat now, you won't want to eat later."

In the eyes of the elderly, eating a full meal is always more important than eating snacks.

"Okay, got it." Li Long responded, walked out of the vegetable garden, and said to Liang Yuemei who came in from outside carrying a wooden shovel:
"Sister-in-law, I've told Xie Yundong and the others to come over in the evening. I want to talk about Hua Kui."

"Why, anyone wants to buy?" Liang Yuemei went to the wheat field to clear the remaining wheat tails to make room for the next step of harvesting oil sunflowers and flower sunflowers. Not only she went there, Li Qingxia was there, and the couple of the Lu family were also busy with this - they also planted flower sunflowers.

However, Li Long did not go to call Lu Yingming and his wife. He decided to wait for his elder brother Li Jianguo to come back.

Half an hour before lunch, Li Jianguo came back on his tractor. The tractor was parked in the front yard. He turned off the engine and strode back. It was obvious that he was covered in dust and dirt.

Although the Dongfanghong 75 tractor has a driving cab, most tractor drivers leave the door open, so they are inevitably covered in dust.

It can be seen that Li Jianguo is very happy. When he saw Li Long, he smiled and asked:

"Is this life coming again?"

Without waiting for Li Long to answer, he went to the well and took a basin to press water to wash his face.

Li Long went over to help press the water, saying as he did so:

"Today a customer came to buy melon seeds, and I introduced our sunflowers to them. I thought I'd come over to tell everyone about it, so I called Brother Yundong and the others to come over in the evening to discuss it together."

"Okay." Li Jianguo nodded, and then asked, "Is it the same customer who bought melon seeds last time?"

"It was the first batch, and the price was not high." Li Long said, "Our flattened melon seeds are more popular, so they wanted to buy more."

"It seems that we really didn't expect at the beginning of the year that melon seeds would become expensive again." After Li Jianguo took the water, he put the towel on his shoulders, washed his face thoroughly in the basin, and then wiped it with the towel.

Li Long saw that the water in the basin had turned gray, so he poured it out and filled half of the basin again.

"I didn't tell Tietou's father. Big brother, please call them later."

"Okay."

After dinner, Xie Yundong and his friends came over one by one. Li Jianguo also called Lu Yingming over. Several people sat, stood or squatted in the yard, holding something in their hands.

Dried salted fish.

Li Qingxia sat by the pot, leisurely roasting the salted fish with the remaining fire under the pot. He dried the fish in the summer. Sometimes he caught less fish and had more than enough for one meal, but it was not worth selling them, so he simply rubbed salt on them, dried them, and put them in his pockets.

At this time, cook the dried fish in the remaining fire, and eat it when it is crispy, which is a good snack.

"The situation is like this." Li Long said, "I have inquired, if we sell our sunflowers to the roasted nuts factory in Shicheng, the maximum price is one dollar, no more than one dollar and one or two dollars.

Of course, the price of melon seeds will also drop this year because too many are planted.

Now I contacted the out-of-town customer who bought melon seeds a while ago, and they said that if the quality of our sunflower seeds can reach the top grade, then one kilogram will be two yuan. Even the second-grade first-grade products can be sold for one yuan and fifty cents. "

One mu of sunflower field yields about 150 kilograms, and at the price of two yuan, that's a gross income of 300 yuan. Although not as good as last year's melon seeds, it's already pretty good compared to grain.

Even if the charge is just one dollar and fifty cents, it will still be more than two hundred dollars, which is fine.

These people all laughed.

"Then how can we reach the special grade?" Jia Weidong, who usually speaks very little, asked a key question.

"Clean them up, with less impurities and fewer shriveled seeds." Li Long said, "The size of our melon seeds is fine, the sunflower seeds are big, and they are better than the ones we eat. But to reach the top grade, I think these aspects are the key. If they are clean and there are no moldy or wormy ones, then they should be about the same."

When the sunflower disk grows, it attracts insects. These insects eat the sunflower seeds on the sunflower. Their teeth are very hard, and they can chew a hole in the sunflower seeds, eat the seeds inside, and then excrete small particles of feces, and then crawl out to continue eating other sunflower seeds.

The current pesticides are of little use to this thing. Moreover, once the sunflower seeds are formed, pesticides cannot be used. After all, sunflower seeds are eaten, and pesticides are toxic.

Therefore, the sunflower seeds that are harvested usually contain shriveled seeds, seeds with feces that have been eaten by insects, and other impurities.

If there are these impurities in sunflower oil, the impact will not be significant if the quantity is not large, because these impurities will be removed along with the oil residue when the oil is pressed.

But sunflowers are eaten by cracking them. It would be fine if you eat the empty seeds, but how disgusting would it be if you eat the ones with insect feces in them?
Therefore, these impurities must be removed. Otherwise, if you take out a handful of melon seeds and find a few with worm holes in them, it would be strange if they can be rated as top grade.

And it’s not difficult to remove this thing. Just do it a few more times when you winnow it.

Farmers don't really care about this. Winnowing twice more is really no big deal.

After listening to what Li Long said, everyone else laughed.

"Brother Long, are we going to harvest the melon seeds this year?" Tao Daqiang suddenly asked, "I see there are quite a few people in the team who grow melons."

"Collect them." Li Long said, "We will make money from them. But don't collect them yet. The people who grow melons in the team will definitely sell them to the snack factory first. We'll see what price they sell them for. If they sell them too high, we will definitely not collect them. If they sell them too low, we'll talk about it later."

He didn't mention anything about ordering a flattening machine, so there's no rush for that.

It was getting dark, and everyone chatted for a while before going their separate ways. Li Long stopped Xie Yundong and asked him to tell the team leader Xu Chengjun about the matter.

Xu Chengjun also grows sunflowers at home, and since he has joined the village, Li Long is naturally willing to help. However, some things are not easy to say in front of the captain, after all, there are many people in Xu Chengjun's family who grow melon seeds.

Let Xie Yundong pass on the message and this matter will be easy to discuss.

Li Long also had to talk to Liang Wenyu. Their family planted five acres of sunflowers this year, and if they wanted to sell them at a good price, they had to do this.

In the next few days, the team members gradually harvested oil sunflowers and flower sunflowers. This harvesting was completely manual, with sickles used to cut off the sunflower heads and put them into urea bags. A high reed mat was used to surround the tractor's bucket, so that more sunflower heads could be loaded. In the past, thick mats made of Achnatherum splendens were used, but now Achnatherum splendens has become a scarce commodity, so only reed mats can be used.

The cut sunflower heads are pulled to the threshing floor. Small quantities are directly knocked off by hand with wooden sticks and then winnowed. Large quantities need to dry the flower heads, then crush them with a tractor and rollers, and then winnow the sunflower seeds.

It's easier than threshing wheat.

Li Long had nothing to do in the county, so he returned to the team to help. Although he didn't want to do farm work, it didn't mean he had to give up. He could still do things like pulling sunflower heads, beating sunflower seeds, and threshing. Although Li Jianguo meant that he didn't need to do this, it was unnecessary.

But his own land was also planted by his eldest brother. Li Jianguo worked hard to plow the land that needed to be plowed. Together with Li Qingxia and his family of four, they were busy planting dozens of acres of sunflowers. Li Long felt that it would be better for him to follow suit.

Even if he is driving a tractor to thresh the field, it can allow his brother to take a break.

Although Li Long was not very good at knocking down the grass, he had no problem winnowing the grass. It was he who suggested winnowing the grass a few more times, so when winnowing the grass, Li Long worked very hard.

Li Jianguo is indeed a good farmer, and the yield of sunflowers per mu is about 170 to 180 kilograms.

Because Li Long had already said so, the work on the field was done very cleanly. Before collecting all the sunflowers and packing them into bags, Li Long really checked them very carefully.

There were no small pieces of soil brought in from the wheat field, no shriveled seeds, no worm holes. I picked up a handful of melon seeds at random, and each one was full, large, and of good quality.

"If they still can't get the special grade, I won't even sell them melon seeds!" Li Long said with a smile.

"Not really." Li Jianguo waved his hands, but there was still a smug look on his face, "There are always people who know what's good."

He also put a lot of effort into harvesting sunflowers this year. He winnowed the field three times, and there were actually quite a few shrunken seeds in the tail of the sunflowers. In previous years, these would have been put in the finished product, but in order to compete for the special grade, these things fell into the tail and were fed to the sheep.

After all, the special grade is 50 cents more expensive per kilogram than the first grade, so removing some of the shrunken ones is nothing.

Li Long did not go to see the goods Xie Yundong and his team had received. The situation had been explained to them, and it was up to them to decide how to do it. If they were lazy or didn't care, then it would be their own fault if the rating was low.

However, Li Long believes that they will all take it seriously.

A week had passed, and while Song Ming was bringing in the sugar residue, Li Long simply hired his car again, went to Kuitun, and brought back the five melon seed flattening machines that he had ordered.

After pulling it back, he put it in an unused house in the compound of his own team 4. Li Long planned that if the melon seeds in the team could not be sold, then he could collect them freely.

He had no plan to process the collected melon seeds by himself, so he distributed the five machines to Tao Daqiang and his team. Just like last time, he asked them to pay the labor and processing fees.

Of course, he would not give too high a price for the melon seeds, just a little higher than the roasted seeds factory. He believed that after seeing so many goods, the roasted seeds factory would definitely lower the price and then refuse to accept them.

After all, the market is so small. If you buy too much and can’t sell it, wouldn’t that be a pure loss?

Moreover, Li Long believed that no one in the team, including those outside the team who bought seeds and planted melons, would ever think of flattening the melon seeds. Even if Xu Chengjun made money last year, his family members who planted melons this year would not do so.

The main reason is that it is too troublesome.

So Li Long only planned to offer a minimum price. Of course, even if the price was the minimum, it would still be more cost-effective than growing crops.

It goes without saying that everyone has to grow food, after all, they have to pay the public tax. Cash crops also have to be grown, which are used to spend money.

The four teams have already made a clear distinction between the two.

Bai Xiuming came here on September 11, after Teachers' Day. Teachers' Day was established in 1985, which is this year. However, at that time, students did not have the idea of ​​giving gifts to teachers, and teachers just wanted to have a day off to relax. After all, it was a good thing to have their own holiday.

Li Jianguo had already delivered dozens of bags of sunflower seeds to the county purchasing station. After Bai Xiuming arrived, Li Long asked him to sit in the reception room and talked about this year's situation.

"The melon seeds haven't been harvested yet. You're here too early."

"It's okay. I'll come earlier. It will make me feel more at ease if I can get to your place earlier. I heard that Dong Zhichao has also come a long time ago?"

There was a reason why Bai Xiuming came early. He originally wanted to come at the time Li Long said. But he didn't expect his old rival to come so early. He was worried that if Li Long couldn't refuse the generous conditions offered by Dong Zhichao, wouldn't his raw materials be wasted?
Although he believed in Li Long's character, he believed more in the power of money, so it would be better for him to come and order it himself.

Li Long didn't say anything, but smiled and said:

"You'll have to wait a few days. But the sunflowers have been harvested, so you can see them now."

Bai Xiuming was not very interested in sunflowers, but since he didn't get the melon seeds, he might as well take a look at the sunflowers now.

Li Long was a little excited, but also a little nervous. He wondered how Bai Xiuming would approve of Hua Kui. (End of this chapter)