Chapter 77 Protection Mechanism
Chapter 77 Protection Mechanism (Additional Update)
The first laboratory in the experimental area is one of Jiang Miao’s own exclusive laboratories and is also a laboratory specifically used for genetic modification.
He did not let other people interfere in his research work, mainly because his research method was different from that of ordinary people, and problems would easily be discovered if he conducted research with others.
At present, Zhang Chengdong and others are doing tissue culture propagation of strawberry seedlings. The so-called tissue culture propagation is actually similar to cutting seedling cultivation, but tissue culture propagation cannot be carried out in greenhouses or open farmlands, but must be carried out in professional sterile laboratories.
Therefore, tissue culture seedlings are also called virus-free seedlings.
In fact, the jasmine strawberry, vanilla strawberry and cheese strawberry carefully selected by Jiang Miao are all highly disease-resistant varieties. Even if tissue culture is not used for detoxification, they can be planted continuously in a piece of farmland for about four or five years before targeted bacteria and viruses may appear.
At the current stage, the main purpose of starting tissue culture seedling production is not detoxification, but rather to quickly increase production capacity.
After all, the speed of creeping stem cuttings and seed seedlings is too slow, which is not conducive to large-scale expansion of production.
Currently, within the entire experimental area, a 15-acre laboratory is specially designed for tissue culture seedlings.
By using tissue culture seedling technology, as long as the first four generations of cultivation are completed, more than 45 strawberry seedlings can be produced every days per acre of laboratory.
Normally, strawberry tissue culture seedlings have a generation of about 45 days, and each generation will increase 6 to 7 times the number of the previous generation.
Taking the current 100 seedlings as the first generation, after 45 days, the second generation seedlings will be 700;
In another 45 days, the third generation of seedlings will be 4900 plants...
After another 45 days, the fourth generation of seedlings will be 3.43 plants...
By analogy, the fifth generation seedlings can reach about 24 plants.
If the 15-acre seedling laboratory is fully put into use, 45 million strawberry seedlings can be produced every 360 days in about half a year.
In fact, 360 million seedlings are not too many for Hailufeng Company, because the greenhouse of Nanhu Farm adopts a combination of ground and overhead planting, requiring 1.2 seedlings per acre.
Currently, 360 million plants are planted on only 300 acres.
Taking into account the current area of Nanhu Farm, it only adds up to 600 acres, of which only 200 acres are planned for growing strawberries; of the remaining 400 acres, in addition to 50 acres of experimental fields, 150 acres are for ginseng fruit and 200 acres are for tomatoes.
Therefore, the laboratory must not produce too many tissue culture seedlings, otherwise it will have no choice but to sell the seedlings to the outside.
Although Hailufeng Company has applied for a license for seed production and sales, and has registered relevant patents for the three strawberry varieties, Jiang Miao has no intention of selling seedlings at this stage.
On the one hand, the three new strawberry varieties are not yet fully known to the market, and the effect of active promotion will not be very good.
On the other hand, as a high value-added product, it is still in a high profit stage at this stage, and there is no need to sell seedlings and create competitors for yourself.
Moreover, Jiang Miao knows the mentality of some domestic growers too well.
Domestic farmers, who are scattered throughout the country, often rush to grow crops as soon as they see that the market price of a certain crop is high, and then expand the scale without any planning or risk management.
When agricultural products are put on the market in large quantities, they are strangled by buyers, and then growers compete with each other on price. In the end, their own profits become lower and lower, but the market retail price does not decrease much.
From tangerines, to Sunshine Rose grapes, to kiwis, one tragic case after another is right there.
Therefore, even if Jiang Miao plans to sell seedlings in the future, he will not sell them indiscriminately across the country. At most, he will designate one or two counties as the exclusive variety for that area, and then prohibit planting in other places.
Otherwise, if growers from all over the country join forces, they can sell the three strawberry varieties of Hailufeng Company at a very low price.
At that time, farmers will choose to reduce quality control to reduce costs for the sake of profit, which will lead to a vicious cycle.
Where do the Sunshine Rose grapes that are now sold at 6 or 7 yuan per pound on the market come from? It is because of the decline in quality control caused by the crazy internal competition, which has led to the unwillingness of buyers to buy them. The growers can only sell them at low prices. The low-quality Sunshine Rose grapes sold at low prices have further formed the effect of bad money driving out good money, forcing those growers who maintain quality to lower their prices, thus gradually leading to a continuous decline in the profits of planting.
Therefore, in order to ensure reasonable profits for new varieties, it is a very necessary measure to appropriately control the planting area and scale.
At the same time, we cannot allow growers too much freedom, otherwise they will soon be defeated one by one by the buyers.
For example, last year's Cuixiang kiwifruit caused quite a stir. The cause was that some e-commerce sellers asked growers to pick and ship the fruits in advance. The fruits, which were originally suitable for picking at the end of September, were picked in August.
Kiwis picked in advance will not become soft no matter how long they are stored. Even if they do become soft, the quality will be very poor.
In an environment where growers are fighting each other, it is natural that some will compromise with e-commerce sellers for the sake of immediate benefits; at the same time, some e-commerce companies with no bottom line also rush to ship products for short-term benefits and do not care about the quality of the products at all.
This behavior leads to the collapse of product reputation.
E-commerce companies can change their appearance, but you, as a grower, cannot, unless you change to growing other fruits.
The question is what about the huge costs invested in the early stages?
Especially for non-herbaceous fruits, it takes at least one or two years from planting to harvesting. With so much cost invested, they will face elimination within a few years of planting and will definitely not be able to recoup the investment.
Therefore, those farmers who pick the fruits early are either stupid or bad, and those e-commerce companies that lure farmers to pick the fruits early are pure bad guys.
To a certain extent, the existence of industry associations is actually quite necessary.
Although the East Japan Agricultural Cooperative Association and the South Korea Agricultural Cooperative Association have been denounced as a piece of shit by experts and scholars on the simplified Chinese Internet.
However, the existence of such an agricultural association can protect the interests of some farmers, as long as the system design is relatively reasonable and the official supervision is relatively strict.
The key lies in how to manage it.
In fact, there are some relatively simple local agricultural associations in China, such as the Kiwi Fruit Association in Xiqin Province and the Dandong Strawberry Association in Liaoning Province.
Therefore, in the future, Hailufeng Company will gradually build some private regional agricultural product associations. On the one hand, it can promote its own new varieties of agricultural products, and on the other hand, it can regulate the scale of planting through the agricultural product associations to avoid trampling production.
In fact, the agricultural products industry association is the area that an agricultural seed company should focus on. It is basically a common problem for a number of domestic agricultural breeding companies to focus on research and development and cultivate excellent varieties without going deep into other basic links of the industry.
It is basically wishful thinking to think that if your company launches excellent crop varieties, it can make farmers rich and then farmers will continue to buy your seedlings.
If seedlings are not strictly controlled, the consequence is that growers will have to fight on their own, and with the help of unscrupulous e-commerce companies, the reputation of the varieties will be ruined.
It is understandable that many seed companies take an indifferent attitude towards those varieties that are not originally developed in China.
However, if one has this attitude towards the new varieties that one has worked so hard to develop, then that is typical of one's lack of ambition.
For domestically developed varieties such as Cuixiang kiwi and Dandong strawberry, local governments and breeding companies should take the initiative to protect the brand value of the varieties.
As a result, one after another they pretended to be dead, causing the growers to become scattered, and then causing the new varieties to dry out and rot. This can only be said to be their own fault.
After all, as a seed research and development company, as long as it registers patented varieties, it can take strong measures against growers who plant seeds indiscriminately and secretly, and directly use the law to curb the phenomenon of excessive planting.
Jiang Miao didn’t understand the thinking of these seedling breeding companies. They could clearly protect their own interests legally, but they chose to stand idly by.
This kind of experience and lesson is really tragic.
(End of this chapter)