The fodder silage technology was only developed last year, and the technology was provided by the gringo Richardson of the Academy of Science and Technology, although Zhao Yan was a traverser, but he was not very familiar with these aspects.

Silage is a kind of roughage obtained by chopping green feed with a moisture content of 65%-75% and inhibiting the reproduction of various miscellaneous bacteria through the fermentation of anaerobic lactic acid bacteria under closed and anoxic conditions. Silage is sour and fragrant, soft and juicy, palatable, nutritious, and conducive to long-term preservation, and is an excellent source of feed for livestock.

Animals never like silage - like - like it three process changes, at first do not like the taste, only feed 10%, and then gradually increase, the more the animals will eat more and more like it.

However, silage cannot be used as all feed, first of all, it is roughage, and secondly, the nitrogen utilization rate is lower than that of hay, and it also needs to be fed with a mixture of hay and concentrate.

After Zhao Yan's explanation, these businessmen were very excited to invest in the aquaculture industry, and some businessmen decided to enter the aquaculture industry on the spot.

Because Zhao Yan can provide them with professional talents, everything becomes very simple, and there is no need for these businessmen to spend time studying how to raise livestock well.

As for the pasture, it is also simple, now there is wasteland everywhere outside Shandong, as long as these businessmen go to other places to buy a piece of land, for example, the land in Beizhili is now cheaper, those areas are more scattered, Zhao Yan's center of gravity is still in Shandong, and it is at the foot of the Son of Heaven, Zhao Yan is not easy to touch.

…… After sending off those merchants, the hustle and bustle of Zhaojiabao also stopped, and Zhao Yan summoned Zhang Buyun, Liu Heng, Song Wenyuan, and Tang Zhengze to explain the matter.

It was also the question of future development.

"When the reform is completed next year, we will swallow most of Shandong, and the population and land will exceed the scale of the past, and the direction of management and development must be determined first." Zhao Yan said. "Let's report the summer harvest first, has the grain for the summer harvest been put into storage?"

"Yes, sir. This year's summer grain harvest has been put into storage, and the 500,000 stone rice and wheat stored in the previous year have been sent to commercial banks for sale. Tang Zhengze reported to Zhao Yan.

This year's summer harvest is affected by the abnormal temperature of last winter, and it is indeed not very ideal, and the yield of wheat per mu is generally only nearly one stone, and some are less than one stone, which is not at all the output of nearly two stones last year.

The main reason is that many tun land was just opened up last year, and the cultivation conditions are not too perfect, and the yield per mu of those tun land that was established earlier can still reach more than one stone.

Denglai's cultivated land has reached 30 million mu, of which 26 million mu belongs to Zhao Yan's tundi, and the remaining 4 million mu belongs to Dengzhou's self-cultivated farmers, but at this time it is also under Zhao Yan's jurisdiction, but the grain is handed over to the government.

The area of wheat cultivation is 25 million mu, and the wheat harvested is more than 20 million stone (1.9 million tons), and the land rent collected is 5 million stone.

In addition, the 500 acres of sweet potatoes planted have not yet been harvested, and sweet potatoes have also been planted in Yingzhou and Handan.

In addition, the wheat harvest in Handan is 3 million stones, and the land rent collected is 900,000 stones, although there are hundreds of thousands of people in Handan, but most of the people are smelting and mining, so there is not much arable land, only more than 4 million mu.

There is a lot of cultivated land in Yingzhou, reaching more than 6 million mu, because it is planting rice, so it was not greatly affected by the abnormal climate last year, and 9 million stone of rice was harvested, and 3 million stone was put into storage.

"After the summer harvest, 15 million mu of soybeans were planted, 15 million mu of corn was planted, 6 million mu of arable land in Yingzhou was planted with soybeans, and 4 million mu of arable land in Handan was also planted with soybeans." Tang Zhengze continued to report: "In terms of livestock, by the end of the year, it is expected that there will be 900,000 pigs, 500,000 sheep, more than 20 million chickens, 180,000 ploughing cattle and 50,000 calves. There are 860,000 military horses and mules, 130,000 military horses, and 70,000 foals. By the end of the year, 8,000 military horses will be slaughtered, and 1,100 mares will enter the breeding period. ”

"Is there enough food?" Zhao Yan asked.

"This year's wheat is enough to feed 7.5 million people, counting the supply of meat and livestock and 200,000 tons of fishery, there is no problem in feeding 10 million people, but the population of Denglai has almost reached 4 million, plus the people who have just arrived to store grain, we also have to hoard grain, it is impossible to export wheat to other places, we can only export sweet potatoes. Soybeans and corn need to be used as feed, and there may be some surplus, but not much. Tang Zhengze said: "According to the development of our current livestock scale, in another two years, the output of feed will not be enough, and those military horses and horses and mules used for transportation in other places will be raised outside Denglai, otherwise it will affect the development of meat and labor livestock." ”

At present, Denglai adopts a single production mode with a high degree of labor concentration, and a labor force can support at least 7.5 people (a household of 50 acres of land, a household with two laborers, wheat produces one stone, and one person consumes 600 catties of grain per year (wet weight, more young and strong, and fewer elderly and children), which can support 7.5 people). There are about 1 million young farmers and women in Denglai, which can support 7.5 million people.

It seems that there are a lot of people to feed, but there are also a large number of people who are not engaged in agricultural production, and coupled with the grain storage practices of the people, it is impossible to export wheat to other countries this year.

At the same time, although fodder crops are planted in large quantities, after last year's appropriation, military horses and horses and mules used for commercial and industrial transportation have increased dramatically.

The capacity of feed supply is reaching its limit unless the yield of feed crops can be increased. Corn yields and soybean yields are relatively low.

"Then next year, there will be more chickens in each tun, and they can be put everywhere, and the Ministry of Education will urgently set up a chicken technical school tomorrow, and horses and mules will be transferred to Qingzhou next year." Zhao Yan decided.

Usually the conversion rate of beef is between 8-10, the conversion rate of pork is between 4-5, and the conversion rate of chicken is between 1.5-2. This means that the same amount of meat is consumed, and chicken consumes the least amount of food.

At the same time, chickens can be stocked, and the chickens stocked into the field consume less food, and a two-pound chicken may only consume more than two pounds of food, and it is relatively convenient to manage. If it is in the era of bursting productivity, stocking is not so convenient, first of all, it is not as good as the centralized breeding of chicken farms, and then there are not so many places to stock. However, in this era, there are many places that can be stocked, and it is very inconvenient to concentrate on breeding.

Of course, even if it is free-range, it also needs professionals to manage, so the establishment of technical schools is a must, technical schools are generally used to train illiterate personnel, and the things taught are relatively simple.

There are also technical schools that train plasterers, carpenters, etc. Technical schools are equipped with literacy teachers, who will surprise those who enter the technical school for a period of time.

Now there are 20 million chickens in stock, only 5 per capita, in the case of feed shortage, the number of pigs and sheep is obviously impossible to mention too much, the supply of meat is obviously insufficient, the average annual consumption of chicken by the Yankees in later generations reached 38 kilograms, and the people of Denglai only 5 kilograms per capita.

Of course, the age is incomparable, but in addition to chicken, other meats are far from the same, just compared to chicken.

"Okay." Song Wenyuan nodded and wrote down the matter of running a technical school in his notebook.

"In addition, we must continue to expand the recruitment of horse and cattle talents, and next year we will swallow more territory, and those people in the business gang also need some manpower, and this talent must be trained as soon as possible." Zhao Yan continued to explain, and Song Wenyuan nodded.

Zhao Yan smiled when he thought of the two pieces of land in Laizhou and Qingzhou, "Laizhou has 20 million mu of cultivated land, we have accounted for more than 2 million mu, and there are 18 million mu, Qingzhou has 30 million mu, and we don't occupy any mu." Both of these places are plain areas and are easy to develop, but the direction of development will have to be carefully discussed. ”

The direction of development is nothing more than growing grain or breeding.

"I think it's better to breed, after we conquer Liaodong, we will inevitably need a lot of animal power to develop Liaodong, and if there are enough military horses, the army will be able to go on an expedition, what does the lord think?" Liu Heng said.

"If it's used for farming, there's not enough land!" Zhao Yan groaned.

Seven or eight times as much land is needed to feed a population with meat as it is with food. If there is enough land, there will be enough pasture for breeding, and then there will be a large number of livestock, and when there are enough service livestock, personal productivity will also increase.

Westerners' farms are a combination of agriculture and animal husbandry, and there is so much land that it can even be rotated.

Although the yield per mu is low, the income of Western farmers is many times higher than that of Chinese farmers, because one person can also manage more land, win by quantity, the amount of land can be unlimited, and the crop yield is limited even if it is high, and with the improvement of science and technology, the advantages of extensive planting will become more and more obvious.

In fact, there is nothing to be proud of in high yield per mu, and it is not that Westerners do not know how to cultivate intensively, but the personal productivity of this kind of intensive cultivation is very low.

Although the agricultural system of high-intensity and intensive monoculture is not highly productive, if you want to change, the premise is that there is enough land, and Daming obviously does not have so much land.

China is a country with complex topography, many places are mountainous and hilly, or ecologically fragile areas, and if all those grain producing areas are converted into farms, people will have to starve to death.

"The lack of land is nothing more than not enough food, and it is okay to use sweet potatoes to last for a few years, and after Liaodong is laid, the land will naturally be enough." Liu Heng looked at Zhao Yan and frowned slightly, and couldn't help but smile, he knew that Zhao Yan didn't like sweet potatoes very much, and said with a smile: "Lord, it's important to fight for territory!" ”

"Hmmm! All right! Then change the ranch completely! Zhao Yan was reminded like this, and quickly nodded and decided.

It's really important to fight the territory, anyway, there are sweet potatoes to support it, and no one will starve to death.

(To be continued)