The poor man grows watermelon

The appearance of the original watermelon is far beyond Su Ye's cognition——

The red melon flesh is separated by bluish-white silk like orange petals. There are six petals in total.

Su Ye expected that this was just an exception, so he ran to the field, picked all the other marked melons, and opened them one by one.

Unfortunately, the situation is exactly the same as the first one.

Could this be the original appearance of watermelon?

Or was his pollination an accident?

Su Ye was puzzled.

Others saw that something was wrong with Su Ye's state, and their original joy faded.

Xue Wa looked at Su Ye and called out timidly, "Daddy?"

Only then did Su Ye break free from his own thoughts, patted the little guy's head, and showed a smiling face, "Sorry, I'm so surprised."

"Is there something wrong?" Yu Feng asked carefully.

Su Ye hesitated for a moment, and said truthfully: "It's different from the ones I've seen, this... I wonder if it tastes good."

"You'll know if you don't eat it!" Su Qingzhu said, and was about to catch it.

Su Yezhu pressed his hand, "Wait, let's try with a pheasant first."

Su Qingzhu puffed his face, reluctantly cut off a very small piece, and took it to feed the pheasant—he just caught it from the mountain two days ago.

Everyone waited anxiously for a while, the colorful big pheasant was still alive and kicking, Su Ye then cut open a few watermelons and distributed them to everyone.

Affected by the inherent concept, when Su Ye cut the melon, only the red flesh was kept, and the blue and white threads were all cut off.

Su Qingzhu hugged the watermelon petal and was the first to bite it down, nodded intoxicated, "Sweet!"

Su Ya'er took a bite immediately, and said pleasantly, "Xiao Ye, this is really sweet! It's sweeter than brown sugar!"

Yu Feng also reacted in the same way.

Su Ye finally showed a reassuring smile, picked up a piece, dug it with a wooden spoon and delivered it to Xuewa's mouth.

Xuewa had opened her mouth wide a long time ago, and swallowed it in one gulp.

At the second bite, the little guy still obediently said, "Daddy, eat."

"Okay~" Su Ye pinched his face, and put the wooden spoon into his little hands, "Baby eat by himself."

"(⊙v⊙) Mmm!" Nodding obediently, eating seriously.

Su Ye picked up a piece of melon pulp and took a tentative bite.

It is not as sweet as the watermelons of later generations, but compared with many wild wild fruits, it is already very good.

He also specially tasted the green and white part, and the taste was clear and refreshing, the same as the part close to the skin of the melon.

There are five watermelons the size of footballs, which looks like a lot, but there are not many places to eat them.

The four adults and one child ate all of them in a short while, and the melon rind was not wasted, and all went into the stomachs of the livestock.

Seeing how happy Yu Feng and the others were, Su Ye's initial disappointment faded a lot, just like what Su Qingzhu said - something to eat is better than nothing.

Xuewa's emotions were so high that she still didn't feel sleepy when it was time for her nap.

Su Ya'er hugged him and coaxed him, "Uncle, take Xuewa to see Huahua, okay? After watching Huahua, just go to bed obediently."

Xuewa nodded her head very seriously, indicating the deal.

Didn't think about it, but the nephew and uncle thought about it.

Su Ya'er pushed him to the back of the house after going out the door. Xiaoxuewa patted the handrail and shouted anxiously: "Huahua! Huahua!"

Su Ya'er wondered, "Just to see Huahua!"

But Xuewa kept her head in a daze, pointing to the field with her little hand.

In the end, Yu Feng reminded: "He wants to see the potted flower?"

Only then did Su Ya'er react, she changed the direction of the wheelchair, and pushed it towards the ground.

At this time, Su Ye was checking the other watermelons that were about to ripen in the field.

Seeing Su Ya'er and Xue Wa surrounded by "Lily", he glanced there inadvertently, and then froze.

A light bulb seemed to light up in his mind, and Su Ye finally remembered what was growing in that bamboo basket!

Yes, it can be said to be a lily. To be more precise, it is actually a species under the Liliaceae called "colchicum".

Su Ye couldn't help laughing—is this what you think?

He was still worrying about how to improve the original watermelon just now, and even imagined the chromosome doubling. Of course, he thought it was impossible, because a chemical agent-colchicine had to be used.

At first, I was thinking that there are not even colchicums here, so where did the colchicine come from? Hey, when I turned my head, I saw a whole basket of colchicums!

Colchicine can be used to breed seedless watermelons. The principle is to split the original diploid watermelons into tetraploids, and then hybridize with diploids to cultivate triploid seeds. Seed Watermelon.

Su Ye was thinking just now that compared with diploid watermelons, the leaves, fruits, flesh, and seeds of tetraploid watermelons are larger and fuller.

So, can it be inferred from this that if the chromosomes of the original watermelon seedlings are doubled with colchicine, will the red flesh range of the tetraploid watermelon obtained become larger?

After all, the seeds are located in the red flesh part, once a mutation occurs, the possibility of increasing the number of green threads is extremely low.

There are no ear seeds yet, and there is just another crop of watermelons, so Su Ye decides to give it a try.

To refine colchicine, in addition to the necessary colchicine powder, chemical preparations such as ethanol, methanol, and ethyl acetate are also required.

Among them, ethanol is mainly used to separate alkaloids from impurities, and methanol and ethyl acetate are used to purify colchicine.

With the current material and technical level, the latter two are not easy to obtain, so Su Ye simply used ethanol to extract the total alkaloids instead of colchicine.

This process is very cumbersome, but he is very patient.

Recently, everyone in Yujia Village knew that Su Ye was "doing something big" again, and it probably had something to do with the sweet watermelon they ate.

Not to mention, it's really sweet, sweeter than sugar!

Everyone reached a tacit agreement by coincidence, and everything made way for Su Ye.

Su Ya'er came to the thatched shed early every day and took Xue Wa out so that Su Ye would not be distracted.

The little guys got the adult's order not to come to play near the thatched shed, so as not to disturb Su Ye.

Yu Feng even took care of all the housework, not even letting Su Ye do such trivial things as making the bed and stacking the quilt.

Xuewa is also obedient, eats on time, sleeps on time, and lets Daddy massage obediently. In short, she doesn't let Su Ye worry about it at all.

Su Ye couldn't laugh or cry, "You don't have to make it so serious, I'm just trying."

Everyone nodded with a smile on their faces, and all of them were excitedly thinking—it’s not a big deal for Xiaoye to “try”?

He must not be distracted!

In such an atmosphere, Su Ye felt pressure virtually.

Looking at the bottles and cans in front of her, Su Ye clenched her fists—only success, no failure!

While refining colchicine, the newly obtained watermelon seeds were also stimulated to produce shoots, which were planted in the experimental field.

When the seedlings began to grow two cotyledons, Su Ye began to drop colchicine.

Because the alkali solution was not pure enough, Su Ye simply increased the concentration, added it dropwise every hour, and persisted tirelessly for a full five days before most of the seedlings became obviously stronger.

This means that it was successful.

Such a rough solution and such a clumsy technique can be successful, Su Ye simply thanked heaven.

Overjoyed, Su Ye transplanted out the seedlings that had not mutated, leaving only those that had successfully mutated. Next, he only needed to take good care of them and wait for three months to ripen.

At the same time, after several months of growth, the Chinese cabbage and the spicy cabbage also both took out flowering branches and bloomed clusters of delicate small flowers.

Looking from a distance, bees and butterflies are flying in the experimental field, and a piece of light yellow and light powder is really beautiful.

The peasant women have never seen the flowering of spicy cabbage in this season, and they will deliberately pass by the experimental field every morning and evening, in order to witness this rare sight with their own eyes.

Probably, there is also the busy figure in the flowers.

The natural hybridization of spicy cabbage and Chinese cabbage can produce the cabbage Chinese cabbage of later generations.

In order to increase the probability of hybridization, Su Ye had to rub the flower branches.

Don't care if it works or not, you have to try.

-

The time soon came to Mangzhong.

There are more than ten mu of winter wheat planted in Yufeng's field. The weather has been good recently, and there have been several strong dry winds in succession. It seems that the ears of wheat turned yellow overnight.

Aunt Su Hua reminded Yu Feng, "I'm afraid it will rain in a few days. Harvest the wheat as early as possible and let it dry in the yard, so as not to be photographed by the rain."

Yu Feng responded quickly, and the next day he took a sickle and harvested the wheat in the field.

Su Ye devoted himself to the experimental field, and he didn't notice until the golden wheat was brought home.

It would be a lie to say that there is no self-blame. It was originally a day for two people, but Yu Feng took it all by himself.

"Well, wash your face first, I'll get you a bowl of noodles!"

Yu Feng watched Xiao Shuang'er running back and forth, fetching water and cooking, no matter how much sweat he sweated, it was worth it.

He cleared up a wheat drying field in front of the grass shed, and dragged a heavy roller to grind it over and over again, and then he put the harvested wheat ears together with the stalks in the sun.

The yield of wheat surprised Su Ye again.

"Why so few?"

Yu Feng scratched his face and explained: "This year is a good year, and there are quite a lot of them now."

Su Ye frowned tightly, is this not a lot?

Compared with the yield of thousands of catties per mu in later generations, it is really not enough!

He deliberately ran to the wheat field to have a look, and found that although the ears of wheat were big and long, there were many empty grains.

And looking at the long awns on the top of the tassels, Su Ye felt that it was very different from the winter wheat in the picture - it looked like bad seedlings mixed with good seeds.

Su Ye's heart skipped a beat - come to think of it, this is what the winter wheat looked like before it was improved, right?

How could he have forgotten!

Hehe, he happened to know how to improve wheat varieties.

The farming novels I’ve read, the crop materials I’ve searched in the past 25 years while lying in bed, and even my obsession with the Central Seven for a while may all be preparations for this time-traveling experience.

He didn't believe in fate at first, but he had to believe it at this moment.