Feed silage technology started to develop last year. The technology was provided by Richardson, a foreigner from the Institute of Science and Technology. Although Zhao Yan is a time traveler, he is not very familiar with these aspects.

Silage is a rough feed obtained by chopping green feed with a moisture content of 65%-75%, and under closed and hypoxia conditions, it inhibits the reproduction of various miscellaneous bacteria through the fermentation of anaerobic lactic acid bacteria. The silage is sour and fragrant, soft and juicy, palatable, rich in nutrition, and conducive to long-term preservation. It is an excellent source of feed for livestock.

Livestock never likes silage - likes - likes three changes. At first, they don’t like this taste and only feed 10%, and then gradually increase the more the animals will like it more and more.

However, silage cannot be used as all feed. First of all, this is rough feed. Secondly, the utilization rate of nitrogen is lower than that of hay. It also requires mixed feeding of hay and concentrate feed.

After Zhao Yan's explanation, these merchants were very moved by investing in the breeding industry. Some merchants decided to enter the breeding industry on the spot.

Because Zhao Yan can provide them with professional talents, everything becomes very simple, and these businessmen do not need to spend time studying how to raise livestock well.

As for the pasture, it is simple. There are wasteland everywhere outside Shandong now. As long as these merchants go to other places to buy a piece of land, for example, the land in Beizhili is relatively cheap now, and those areas are relatively scattered. Zhao Yan's focus is still in Shandong, and that is at the foot of the emperor, so Zhao Yan is not easy to interfere.

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

What is being discussed is still the issue of future development.

"When the reform is completed next year, we will swallow most of Shandong. The population and land will exceed the previous scale, and the management and development direction must be determined first." Zhao Yan said. "Let's report on the summer harvest situation first. Have the summer harvest been stored?"

"Yes, sir. The grain collected this summer has been put into storage, and the 500,000 shi of rice and wheat in stock in the previous year have been sent to the trading company for sale." Tang Zhengze reported to Zhao Yan.

This summer is not ideal for the abnormal temperature in last winter. The wheat yield per mu is generally only nearly one stone, and some are less than one stone, which is not even enough to reach the output of nearly two stones last year.

The main reason is that many villages were just opened last year, and the farming conditions were not very perfect. The yield per mu of those villages established earlier can still reach more than one stone.

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

The wheat planting area is 25 million mu, and the wheat harvested is more than 20 million stones (1.9 million tons), and the land rent collected is 5 million stones. It can be said that the cost of farming last year was earned back.

In addition, the 500 acres of sweet potatoes planted have not been harvested, and both Yingzhou and Handan have been planted with sweet potatoes.

In addition, the wheat harvested in Handan was 3 million stones, and the land rent collected was only 900,000 stones. Although there were hundreds of thousands of people in Handan, people were smelting and mining, so there was not much cultivated land, only more than four million acres.

There is a lot of arable land in Yingzhou, reaching more than 6 million mu. Since it is a planted rice, it is not much affected by the abnormal climate last year. Nine million stones of rice were harvested and three million stones were stored.

"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 were planted, and 4 million mu of arable land in Handan also planted soybeans." Tang Zhengze continued to report: "In terms of livestock, by the end of the year, the pig inventory is expected to be 900,000, the sheep inventory is 500,000, the chicken inventory is more than 20 million, the plowing oxen 180,000, and the calf account for 50,000. The service horses, 860,000 mules, 130,000 military horses and 70,000 horses. By the end of the year, 8,000 military horses will be slaughtered and used, and 1,100 mares will enter the breeding period."

"Is there enough food?" Zhao Yan asked.

"This year's wheat is enough to raise 7.5 million people. Including meat livestock and 200,000 tons of fishery production, it's no problem to support 10 million people. However, the population of Denglai has almost reached 4 million. In addition, the newly arrived people have stored grain, so we also need to stock up on grain. It is impossible to export wheat to the outside world. 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 scale of livestock we are now developing, in two years, the feed will not be enough. Those military horses and mules transported from other places will be raised outside Denglai, otherwise it will affect the development of meat livestock."

At present, Denglai adopts a highly concentrated and single production model. One labor force can support at least 7.5 people (one household has 50 acres of land, one household has two labor force, wheat produces one stone, and one person consumes 600 kilograms of grain per year (wet heavy, young and strong will be more, and the elderly and children are few), which can support 7.5 people). Denglai has about 1 million farmers, young and strong and women, and can support 7.5 million people.

The population that feeds seems to be large, but the population that does not engage in agricultural production is also large. In addition, the private grain storage behavior is not possible, this year, to export wheat to other places.

At the same time, although feed crops are planted more often, after the allocation of funds last year, the number of horses and mules used for commercial and industrial transportation has increased dramatically. If Dengzhou Prefecture had not carried out large-scale settlement, the feed output would have been really unsustainable.

Feed supply capacity is approaching its limit unless the yield of feed crops can increase. Corn and soybean production are relatively low.

"Then next year, there will be more chickens in each town, and they can be stored everywhere. The Ministry of Education will urgently set up a chicken raising technical school tomorrow, and horses and mules will be transferred to Qingzhou one after another next year." Zhao Yan decided.

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

At the same time, chickens can be free-ranged, and the chickens that are free-ranged in the fields consume less food. A chicken weighing two pounds may consume only more than two pounds of food, and it is relatively convenient to manage. If the productivity is overwhelming, it is not so convenient to stock. First of all, it is not as easy to manage in centralized breeding in chicken farms, and there are not so many places to stock. However, in this era, there are many places that can be stocked, and centralized breeding is very inconvenient. Once you get sick, you will die.

Of course, even if it is free, it requires professionals to manage it, so it is necessary to set up a technical school. Technical schools are generally used to train illiterate people and teach relatively single things. Currently, there are many technical schools in Denglai, and most of them serve the military industry.

There are also some technical schools that train plasterers and carpenters. The technical schools are equipped with literacy teachers, which will attack people entering the technical schools for a period of time.

There are now 20 million chickens in stock, with only 5 per capita. In the shortage of feed, it is obvious that the number of pigs and sheep in stock is not too high. The supply of meat is obviously insufficient. Later Americans consumed 38 kilograms of chicken per year, while the average per capita of Denglai people was only 5 kilograms.

Of course, it is impossible to compare with the different ages, but apart from chicken, other meats are even more different, just compared with chicken.

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

"In addition, horse and cattle breeding talents will continue to expand their enrollment. We will swallow more territory next year, and those in the business gang also need some manpower. Talents in this area must be trained quickly." Zhao Yan continued to explain, and Song Wenyuan nodded.

When Zhao Yan thought of the two lands of Laizhou and Qingzhou, he smiled, "Laizhou has 20 million mu of arable land, we have occupied more than 2 million mu, and there are 18 million mu. Qingzhou has 30 million mu, and we have not occupied one mu. These two places are plains and are very easy to develop, but this development direction needs to be discussed carefully."

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

"I think it's better to breed. After we capture Liaodong, we will definitely need a lot of animal power to develop Liaodong. And with enough military horses, the army can go on an expedition. What do you think?" Liu Heng said.

"If it is used for breeding, the land will not be enough!" Zhao Yan pondered.

The land needed to feed the population with meat is seven or eight times that of grain. With enough land, enough forage can be planted for breeding, and then there will be a large number of livestock. With enough service livestock, personal productivity will also be improved.

Western farms are a combination of agriculture and animal husbandry, and they can even rotate the land.

They adopted a low-labor-intensive mixed planting and animal husbandry agricultural system. Although the yield per mu is low, Western farmers' income is many times higher than that of Chinese farmers, because a person can also manage more land and win with quantity. The amount of land can be unlimited, and even the crop yield is limited. With the improvement of technology, the advantages of extensive planting will become more and more obvious.

In fact, there is nothing to be proud of when the yield per mu is high. Westerners are not unable to cultivate carefully, but the personal productivity of this kind of cultivation is very low.

Although the high-intensity and intensive single-plant agricultural system is not very productive, the premise for change is that there is enough land, and there is obviously not so much land.

China is a country with relatively complex terrain. Many places are mountainous areas and hills, or ecologically fragile areas. If all grain production areas are converted into farms, people will starve to death.

"There is nothing more than insufficient food. It's enough to use sweet potatoes for a few years. After capturing Liaodong, the land will naturally be enough." Liu Heng looked at Zhao Yan's brow 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 territories!"

"Well! Okay! Then change the ranch all!" Zhao Yan nodded quickly and decided to say when he was reminded.

It’s really important to fight the territory. Anyway, if you have sweet potatoes to support you, you won’t starve to death.

(To be continued)
Chapter completed!