The next day was a sunny day.

The heavy rain for days finally stopped.

Wang Lin opened the curtains, and the cool morning breeze blew over, carrying the fragrance of jasmine and Milanese flowers.

The morning light slowly opened, and it was a colorful morning that came to the world with freshness.

In the distant mountains and near fields, everything is pure and refreshing, like a light ink painting. The ink painting is filled with the pleasant fragrance of green grass.

Cotton Bell came over and called him to have breakfast.

"Are you feeling better?" Wang Lin asked.

"Much better." Mian Ling was full of energy and her face looked fresh, as if she had completed self-repair after waking up from sleep.

After breakfast, Wang Lin and others went to the cotton fields to inspect.

After many days of heavy rain, the phenomenon of broken bells was obvious.

Cotton likes heat but not rain, which is why the cotton yield in southern my country is particularly high and the quality is good.

The Nanjing cotton production area developed by Wang Lin in Loudong is also one of the best quality cotton varieties. This kind of cotton is very suitable for use in high-end fabrics.

The cotton boll organizers gathered the rotten bolls manually.

In order to complete the picking of rotten bolls as soon as possible, Cotton Boll recruited a group of workers from nearby villages.

Picking cotton is a tiring job.

The cotton collection efficiency of the machine is high, but there is a big shortcoming, that is, the impurities in the cotton are high.

The cost of manual picking is high, but the impurities are low, so the factory purchase price is higher than that of machine-picked cotton.

Machine-picked cotton generally needs to be processed by cotton cleaning plants before it can be used by textile mills.

However, the investment in cotton cleaning plants is very large. An investment of tens of millions is not something that ordinary textile mills can afford.

Many private farmers contract large areas of land to grow cotton, usually hundreds or thousands of acres. They cannot use machines to pick cotton. They only hire people to work for three months during the cotton picking season.

The wages of cotton pickers are not high. They are paid 10 cents per kilogram of cotton. The more you pick, the more you get.

A skilled cotton picker can pick more than 100 kilograms of cotton a day, and some powerful ones can pick 200 kilograms a day.

But the vast majority of people can only harvest about 50 kilograms a day and earn a salary of 10 yuan a day.

This salary is already considered a high income in rural areas.

The cotton picking period is generally three months, and the Chinese New Year will soon come after picking cotton. Many farmers are willing to make some money during this period just in time for the Chinese New Year.

When workers pick cotton, they have to work hard with their hands, but the most injured ones are their hands.

The top part of the cotton shell is very sharp, and you may get pricked on your hand if you are not careful. In addition, the weather is very dry, and your hands will be scratched by the cotton branches.

After 3 months of cotton picking, the cotton pickers' nails will be bald, there will be a little trace of congestion in the nail caps, and the fingers will be a little red and swollen.

Wang Lin went down to the ground and tried picking for more than an hour, but he couldn't bear it anymore.

Cotton plants are very short and can only be picked while bending over. Some workers will kneel down or crawl forward to save effort.

Wang Lin weighed the cotton he picked and found that it was only eight pounds of cotton.

A flower of cotton is very light, only about 5 grams.

Wang Lin worked for so long and only earned 80 cents in wages, which made him want to cry.

In fact, if you think about it, when he worked in the machine repair shop of Shenfang Factory, his daily salary was only three or four yuan.

If he picks cotton for a day, he can earn at least four or five yuan, which is no worse than his salary as a worker.

However, how can Wang Lin value the salary of a few dollars a day now?

Wang Lin held his waist with one hand and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the other, saying, "I'm so tired! This is the most tiring job I've ever done. Mr. Zhou, we must mechanize it!"

Zhou Boqiang said: "The work of picking cotton is indeed tiring. Only the poor people in the countryside who can't make much money come out to pick cotton. People in the city can't bear this hardship."

Wang Lindao: "Yes! So we must implement mechanized harvesting. Also, starting next year, we will expand the planting area to 200,000!"

They have only cultivated 50,000 acres of cotton fields this year.

This is equivalent to an experiment, the purpose is to test the yield of new varieties.

Zhou Boqiang said: "200,000 acres? Okay! We have so many cotton fields, and we will be completely self-sufficient in cotton in the future."

For Chinese people, most people have a special liking for cotton products. In the traditional perception of Chinese people, chemical fiber products are not as good as those cotton and wool products. This cognitive habit also allows us to continuously expand cotton production and consumption. Among the cotton-growing areas in the country, southern Xinjiang and the Yangtze River Basin have the loudest reputations, and are also the base camp of my country's cotton industry.

my country's cotton has always been able to sell at a good price, and it is also a strategic material for the national reserve.

In the past few years, due to the background of the household responsibility system, each household only had a few acres of land. At that time, every household relied on manual picking to grow cotton. However, this was only limited to central China, such as the vast land in southern Xinjiang.

, every time it is time to pick cotton, it is impossible to fully pick with just a few members of the family, so they need to hire tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of cotton pickers from other provinces.

If a mechanical cotton picker is used, daily cotton picking is equivalent to the human labor of 600 people.

Because of this, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers rated the cotton picker as one of the greatest inventions in the field of agricultural engineering in the 20th century.

Wang Lindao: "Yes, we will be self-sufficient from now on! I'm afraid we won't be able to sell the relevant machinery in China, right?"

Zhou Boqiang said: "Definitely not."

Mianling said: "I know a thing or two about this situation. The patents for cotton picking machines are all in the hands of others. Mainly in the hands of Americans. The cotton picking machines currently on the global market are mainly products of John Deere and Case.

Among them, John Deere cotton pickers alone account for more than half of the market share."

The reason why American cotton pickers can dominate the market is that they started early in patent layout and have relatively high harvesting efficiency. For example, a certain cotton picker from John Deere can harvest 65 acres of cotton in one hour.

And it can operate 24 hours a day to pick cotton. This is also the most efficient cotton picking machine in the world.

In the next few decades, 90% of the domestic cotton picking machine market will be monopolized by companies in developed countries such as Europe, the United States and Japan. It was not until 2018 that the domestic cotton picking machine market turned around and caught up from behind.

my country's agricultural machinery market developed relatively late, which is related to my country's overall industrial progress.

Wang Lin couldn't help but sigh: "Can't there be domestic brands?"

Zhou Boqiang asked: "Would you like to try it with Jiangnan Machinery Factory?"

Wang Lin said: "Mr. Cotton, do you know how much a large cotton picker like John Deere costs?"

Mian Ling said: "Theirs are very expensive. Liudao's cotton picker costs more than 5 million."

"More than 5 million?" Wang Lin asked in confusion, "Isn't that a sky-high price?"

Wang Lin has experience. Taking the hygiene production line as an example, the imported one costs 20 million, while the domestic one only costs 7 million, which is one-third cheaper. The main components are also imported, and the quality is also low.

very nice.

Thinking about it this way, Wang Lin felt that if the cotton picking machine could be domestically produced, the price would definitely be about two-thirds cheaper, and the cost price would be even lower!

Capitalists in Europe, America and Japan are the most profitable. They can sell you for 30 yuan at a cost of one yuan!

If Wang Lin doesn’t want to be exploited by foreign capital, he can only pursue domestic production.

Domestic independent research and development can avoid major foreign patents.

Our country's science and technology needs to continue to develop and carry out original scientific research to be able to compete with foreign brands.

However, a large amount of money is required in the early stage of research and development, and ordinary companies will not invest such a large amount of money in research and development.

What Wang Lin can foresee is that the domestic cotton picking machine market is very huge.

This is a large market worth hundreds of billions.

The earlier you plan, the more opportunities you can seize.

The country's large-scale cotton production layout in southern Xinjiang is about to begin. From 1995 onwards, cotton picking machines will be purchased in large quantities.

A six-channel imported cotton picking machine costs more than 5 million. It is conceivable that they will make hundreds of billions of money from our country in the next few decades!

Wang Lin listened to Zhou Boqiang's suggestion and said slowly: "What Mr. Zhou said is absolutely true. We can contact Jiangnan Machinery Factory and hope that they can overcome the problem of cotton picking machines. We can definitely produce products that can be produced abroad.

Produced! Two bombs and one satellite have been produced, what else can stump us?"

Mian Ling said: "In fact, our country had already begun to develop cotton picking machines as early as 1952."

Wang Lindao: "Really? It was developed so early? What happened next?"

Mian Ling said: "Our country was investing money one after another, and wanted to build a full mechanization model of cotton like Big Brother. It introduced a vertical spindle cotton picker for experiments. This kind of cotton picker has many advantages, mainly the simple structure of the picking parts.

, the production and manufacturing requirements are low. But the disadvantages are also very obvious. The net recovery rate is low and the impurity content rate is high. There is a lot of waste and the loss is too great."

Zhou Boqiang smiled and said: "It's amazing, Mr. Mian, your knowledge is really broad!"

Mian Ling said: "In order to plant cotton areas, I read relevant information every day, and of course I also have to study the cotton picker. I still remember that the representative models of that era include the xbh-1.2 2-row cotton picker and the xc

-Model 15 4-row cotton picker.”

Wang Lindao: "What happened next? Is there no more content?"

Mian Ling said: "Because the disadvantages are too obvious, it is not as good as hand-picking, and it is not in line with our country's national conditions. Until now, our country has almost completely and completely abandoned the vertical ingot picking machine technology."

Wang Lin was stunned and said: "Then wouldn't all the previous research and development work have been in vain?"

Mianling said: "Yes! So we can only take other research and development paths."

Wang Lin pondered: "Does the Agricultural Machinery Institute take the lead in developing such agricultural machinery?"
To be continued...