Above the mage!

Chapter 292 Cold-Resistant Wheat

This is the barley seed that Gao De discovered together with "Mandola's Tears" in the cave of the snow-spotted cheetah on the snow-capped peaks of Dandong.

The extremely cold weather in the north did not kill the vitality of this barley seed.

If you look carefully, you can see a hint of green beneath its dark shell, which is its vibrant vitality.

According to Flora, this is a cold-resistant barley variety, and an environment of minus sixty degrees or even lower is the most suitable environment for its growth.

This kind of barley seed is unheard of.

But the adaptability and evolutionary ability of all things in nature is so magical: one day, a gene may undergo a tiny mutation, and the door to a new world may open.

There is no doubt that this barley seed was born for the North.

The permafrost, which has been barren and desolate for so many years, is about to produce its own unique crops.

Perhaps such barley seeds had appeared a long time ago, but no one had discovered them until they were noticed by Gode this time.

Just like planting a tree, Gao De used his magician's hand to dig through the thick snow, and then used plastic soil to dig a 20-30 cm planting hole.

At the same time, as Gaode's mind changed, the soil was kneaded like soft clay.

This is to improve the soil structure, make the hard soil soft and layered, and increase air permeability.

After doing all this, Flora put the cold-resistant barley seed into the seed pit.

Gao De then covered it with a three or four centimeters thick layer of plastic soil and leveled the land.

According to common sense, the next step is to wait quietly for the wheat seeds to germinate.

Under normal circumstances, it takes 3-7 days for barley to germinate from sowing.

But Gaode already has "abnormal" capabilities.

He took a step forward and performed the "Natural Technique" learned from the Qingmu Changshengjing.

A natural and friendly wave burst out from his palm and injected directly into the place where the seeds were buried.

The next moment, the flat layer of soil suddenly moved.

A tender green sprout broke through the soil. It was curled at first, but soon it stretched out and grew rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Time seemed to be compressed to the extreme at this moment, and the whole scene was a bit like a plant documentary that was about to be released.

New buds continue to rise, leaves quickly unfold, the stems gradually become thicker, and side branches begin to form, all in a very short time.

Just a few minutes later, a thriving wheat seedling had stood up on the originally empty land, swaying in the wind.

As a price to pay, the liquid mana in Gaode's body was rapidly consumed, and half of it had already been gone.

But this is not enough, because the barley seedling has just passed the germination and emergence stage and is in the tillering stage.

This process, if it grows naturally, will take about 15-20 days.

In other words, it can be roughly understood as: with Gaode's current mage level, consuming one drop of liquid mana can help ordinary plants skip about two days of growth progress.

Gaode continued to cast the art of nature.

As nature continues, the cold-resistant barley plant continues to add new leaves and tillers, while the root system continues to expand. When it grows to more than 20 centimeters in height, the first internode at the base of the plant begins to elongate significantly.

The elongation of the basal internodes is the main physical indicator of the beginning of the barley jointing period.

Its stems no longer stay close to the ground, but begin to stretch upward.

Shortly after jointing, barley will enter the heading stage.

It takes about 20 days of natural growth time from tillering to jointing stage.

According to natural laws, shortly after entering the jointing stage, barley will enter the heading stage and the internal ears will begin to develop.

Subsequently, ears will gradually emerge from the top of the barley plant. This process is the heading period, which is also the last stage before the barley enters reproductive growth.

But at this point, Gao De stopped using the "Art of Nature" and stopped - because his magic power had been exhausted.

In addition, barley plants have a greater demand for nutrients during the jointing stage and require appropriate amounts of topdressing.

But Gaode doesn't need to do this.

Under his instructions, Elder Grant had already prepared fish meal for fertilizing the golden wheat.

The so-called fish meal is actually the remaining parts of the fish except the edible parts, including the internal organs, head, bones, and scales. It is then naturally dried in the sun and manually ground into powder. This is fish meal.

According to the experience of the Zhenbing tribe, the powder made in this way can be directly spread on the fields to promote the growth of golden wheat.

In Gaode's eyes, it can be summed up in one sentence: it is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus, which are essential nutrients for plant growth.

Anyway, Elder Grant took out the fish meal and was spreading it evenly on the soil of the cold-resistant wheat.

It cannot be too much, nor too little. To be honest, it is not easy to control the amount of fertilizer, not to mention that this is a crop that Elder Grant is completely unfamiliar with.

But in front of the real expert Flora, this is not a problem at all.

So Gao De felt very relieved and took out a purple fruit he had carried with him.

This is a magical plant picked by the people of the Zhenbing tribe on the snowfield. After taking it, its effect is somewhat similar to that of a mana recovery potion, which can help a mage quickly recover mana.

After eating the fruit, Gao De began to practice the [Qingmu Changsheng Sutra] and began to recover his exhausted magic power, without being affected by the external environment at all.

After evolving the [Body of Dharma Ninja], he has been able to do what only experienced high-level mages can do: quickly enter the state of practice anytime and anywhere.

In less than half an hour, with the help of the purple fruit, Gaode restored his mana to full, and the fertilizing work on the other side had been completed long ago.

"Continue." He stood up and once again "infused" the barley plant, which had skipped nearly two months of growth with the help of the "art of nature".

With the infusion of the power of nature, the tops of the barley began to show vitality, first heading and then entering the flowering stage.

The tender green spikes of inflorescence open one after another, emitting a faint fragrance.

At this point, Gaode stopped again.

Because during the flowering period, barley has another very important job to do - pollination.

If he continued to use "nature's magic" to promote the growth of barley, this cold-resistant wheat would not have enough time to pollinate and would pass its flowering period, and naturally would not produce any grains.

There is only one cold-resistant barley seed, so there can be no mistakes.

Elder Grant is still in charge.

Although there is only one such cold-resistant wheat seedling in the world, it is the only one.

Fortunately, barley is a self-pollinating crop. Its flowers are bisexual, that is, the same flower contains both stamens and pistils, so it has the ability to self-pollinate, so there is no need to worry about the "offspring" problem. Elder Grant took out the fine-bristled brush made of the soft inner hair of the snow wolf that he had prepared long ago, and under Flora's command, he found the open stamens, gently brushed the yellow anthers on the stamens with the fine-bristled brush, and carefully collected the pollen into a small bottle.

After collecting all the pollen from the stamens, he turned to dip a fine-bristled brush in the pollen and gently applied it to the stigma of the pistil.

In order to increase the success rate of pollination, this process needs to be repeated many times.

While Elder Grant was busy, Gode ate another purple fruit and began to recover more than half of his magic power.

To be honest, before obtaining the "Art of Nature", Gaode was very worried about the issue of fault tolerance.

Because when there is only one cold-resistant barley seed, the entire planting process cannot afford any mistakes, and it takes about four months for barley to mature from seed.

These four months require careful care, and any slight mistake may result in all previous efforts being wasted.

Even with Flora helping to look after the kids, the pressure was still enormous.

However, now with the "Natural Technique" ability granted by the "Aoki Changshengjing", the four-month growth period of this barley seed can be compressed into half a day. Coupled with Flora's assistance, under such conditions, it is actually difficult for problems to occur.

When Gode's magic power was filled to its peak again, Elder Grant also completed the pollination work.

So, the birth continued.

After pollination, the barley flowers gradually lose their vitality and former brightness, and are replaced by gradually swelling green grains, which means the barley has entered the final grain filling stage.

As the filling process progresses, dry matter in the grains gradually accumulates, starch solidifies, the water content decreases, the grains become harder and harder, and the color begins to change from green to light yellow until it becomes a dazzling golden yellow.

Finally, a mature barley plant with golden grains stood proudly before Gao De's eyes.

With just one glance, he quickly determined the yield of this cold-resistant barley.

37 mature seeds.

To be honest, this output is not high.

But that's not the point.

The important thing is that this is barley that grows on the snowfield and in an extremely cold environment.

The "art of nature" can only induce growth and speed up the natural growth process of a plant, but it cannot make a plant that cannot grow grow smoothly.

In other words, even without the "art of nature", this barley plant would have grown into its current appearance in four months.

Who can say it’s not a miracle?
Gao De was quite moved.

He was just about to tell Elder Grant behind him something, but after calling out several times, there was no response.

I turned around in surprise and found that Elder Grant's face was already red.

"He will bring spring and life to the permafrost."

"He will save the children of the Iceborn from hunger."

Elder Grant’s mind echoed with Sunaifa’s soft moans at Gu Shuangkou.

Although it has been confirmed that Gao De is the new king and the person predicted, when he actually saw the things mentioned in the prophecy appear before his eyes, he still felt dry mouth and almost couldn't stand, and his heart was beating violently.

All the blood in his body rushed to his head, making him feel a little dizzy.

He stared at the barley plant with ripe grains hanging on it, totally unable to believe what he saw.

"Is this wheat?!" Elder Grant's voice trembled slightly.

Elder Grant is in charge of the cultivation of golden wheat in the Zhenbing tribe.

Although Golden Wheat and Cold-Resistant Wheat are not the same variety of wheat, they are both barley after all and have many similarities in appearance, so he should not have behaved so inappropriately towards a barley plant.

But the problem is that this is not barley grown on volcanic land, but on the snowfield!
In the North, snowfields like this are everywhere!

What does this mean?
Not only the sound, Elder Grant's body also began to tremble slightly.

"Yes, Elder Grant, collect these wheat grains and use them as seeds for the first generation." Gode gave the order.

Bang.

The next moment, Elder Grant was kneeling in front of the barley plant with the most pious attitude.

"A miracle, this is a miracle. No one in our tribe will die of hunger anymore!" He stretched out his hand tremblingly and gently stroked the grains of barley on the barley plants, as if he was touching some rare treasure.

If you are not from the North, you will never be able to fully understand the spiritual shock that the appearance of such a barley tree can bring to the people of the North.

Even an old man like Elder Grant, such a senior Ice Mage, is now completely unable to control his emotions.

"Elder Grant, this is just the beginning. The high-yield potential of cold-resistant wheat is still worrying. Its reproductive capacity and seed vitality have not yet been examined, and it does not have the cold-resistant properties of golden wheat."

Gao De helped the disgraced Elder Grant up and said softly, "After obtaining enough original seeds, we need to carry out cross breeding and continuous optimization to cultivate barley seeds that are truly suitable for the North."

Cold-resistant wheat is the name given to this kind of barley by Gaode, which is easy to understand.

Elder Grant could not understand what Gode said because it was too advanced, but at least he could understand what Gode meant.

At this moment, in his eyes, Gao De was the person who created miracles.

If his obedience and awe of Goder came from "prophecy" before, now it comes from the heart.

Elder Grant collected the 37 cold-resistant wheat seeds carefully, as if they were his own newborn children, fearing that his shaking hands would destroy even one grain of wheat.

Flora put the 37 cold-resistant wheat seeds into her own small space.

"My king, what should we do with this barley?" Elder Grant asked, pointing at the bare barley plant.

"Shovel it away. Then, I'll have to trouble Elder Grant to make the most of his time to help reclaim a piece of land today. The style should be the same as before. As for the spacing..." Gode paused, and Flora immediately understood and started to mark on the land.

To be honest, not only in the North, but the world's planting technology is still at a relatively low level. The most distinctive feature is the lack of clear standards.

Everyone cultivates his own land according to his own experience. Some people sow seeds densely, some sow shallowly, some apply more fertilizer, some apply less fertilizer. Naturally, the yield also fluctuates randomly.

There should be a most suitable method for each crop. However, in order to find the most suitable one, we not only need to be aware of it, but also conduct experiments and summaries in a scientific way.

There is no doubt that this is a cumbersome and time-consuming task.

But this world has its own "metaphysics".

Therefore, something that should have taken a lot of effort, Flora could complete it in an instant with her talent, and the quality was so high that there was nothing wrong with it.

"Tomorrow, I will continue to plant this first batch of barley seeds to obtain more cold-resistant wheat seeds."

"As for this piece of land, it will be reclaimed and used as a pollen field. I will ask Sunaifa to select a group of people to be responsible for the care and protection of this pollen field."

(End of this chapter)