Chapter 227 226. Pea Tips and Pea Heads

Qi Ruomu didn't understand.

But I still sent a message.

Less than five minutes later, a video call came in.

International long-distance calls are expensive, and video calls are more cost-effective.

Qi Ruomu hesitated for a few seconds and clicked the answer button.

Then, a lady with a fierce face appeared on the screen and asked, "Qi Ruomu, did you hear something? Who spread it?"

"I haven't heard anything, and no one has spread it." Qi Ruomu scratched his head, a little puzzled.

"Are you sure?" The lady frowned.

Qi Ruomu shuddered subconsciously and shook his head frantically, "Sure, very sure."

"Are you sure what you're shaking your head about?"

Qi Ruomu stopped for a moment and quickly nodded.

"You nodded to mean you heard about it?"

Click. Qi Ruomu's neck was almost twisted, and he didn't know what to do.

With a sad face, he begged, "Big Sister, please, if you have something to say, can you just say it directly? Let me die knowingly."

Qi Ruomu's senior sister, the lady named Wenying on the other side of the video, relaxed her eyebrows a little and asked in confusion: "You said you don't know anything? Then what do you mean by sending a message?"

"Nothing interesting, just asking."

"Why are you asking this?"

"This..." Qi Ruomu decisively betrayed Luo Yihang, turned the phone around and pointed at Luo Yihang and said, "He asked me to ask."

This time it was Wenying's turn to be stunned.

She hadn't expected there to be anyone else.

Luo Yihang was already greeting, "Hello, my name is Luo Yihang. It's our first meeting. I always hear Qi Ruomu mention you."

Wenying also relaxed her brows, straightened her face, and greeted, "Hello, I'm Wenying."

She seemed unaccustomed to being polite. Her face was very serious when she greeted him, and she asked directly, "Excuse me, who are you to Qi Ruomu? Why did you ask him to ask me if I have cultivated any new species, even if it was a failure?"

Luo Yihang explained: "I opened an agricultural company that does planting. Qi Ruomu is helping me with planning. We have been struggling for several days about what crops to plant and have not been able to decide. Just now, I suddenly remembered that he mentioned that you were doing breeding research, so I asked him to ask you if you have any new results that I can try to plant."

"So that's how it is." Wenying nodded, but there was still a look of confusion on her face.

Luo Yihang then turned the phone around and handed it to Qi Ruomu, "Explain it to me."

Qi Ruomu took it and first affirmed Luo Yihang's statement, and then talked about the situation and scale of Luo Yihang's side, especially the importance attached to it by Professor Du Jing.

When Wenying heard Professor Du Jing's name, she put aside her doubts and smiled.

He said, "So the teacher has been to your place too."

That's it.

Then she talked about her achievements.

It really does.

"After my tomato variety failed last year, I decided to change my mood and pay tribute to Mendel by breeding a pea variety. I selected early-maturing and mid-maturing pea varieties for hybridization and combined them with chromosome replacement technology to start breeding again."

"My goal is to develop a fast-maturing pea variety, even shorter than the early-maturing 65 days."

Having said this, Wenying paused.

Qi Ruomu was listening attentively, and asked hurriedly: "Did it succeed?"

Wenying smiled bitterly, shook her head, and nodded. This was the biggest expression she made today.

“It succeeded, and it failed.”

"What do you mean?" Qi Ruomu continued to ask.

How is it possible to succeed and fail at the same time?
Wenying did not hesitate this time and answered directly: "I was very lucky this time. I only cultivated five generations of peas and I saw results. After the new variety was separated into groups, the computer simulated the growth cycle in 40 days, the first generation was planted in the laboratory in 42 days, and the second generation was planted in 45 days. After another four to five generations, it will basically be stable. I estimate that it will take between 40 and 50 days. This is the successful part."

"What about the unsuccessful part?" Qi Ruomu asked again.

Wenying sighed and said helplessly: "The plant is very delicate, it rarely blooms, and after pollination, it does not produce pods or fruits."

"Ugh!" Qi Rumu really turned into a wooden man, looking completely dumbfounded.

After listening to this, Luo Yihang kicked his feet, rowed his chair away, and covered his mouth to try hard not to laugh.

No results!!!
No results again!!!
I wonder if Ms. Wenying is possessed by some evil spirit.

Last time, the tomatoes were very disease-resistant, but they didn't bear fruit.

This time again, the peas grow very fast but still don't bear fruit.

No wonder she was so angry after Qi Ruomu asked her. If this were to get out, she would definitely become famous and be nicknamed "Infertile Lady"...

Shi Juan had no idea what was going on, so out of professionalism, she interrupted and asked, "Senior sister, hello, did you hybridize a triploid?"

Triploid means that there are three sets of chromosomes in the cells. This kind of plant cannot reproduce and will not produce seeds.

For example, wild bananas have a lot of seeds, but common bananas have no seeds. That is, triploid bananas can only be planted by artificial cuttings.

There is also seedless watermelon, which is also triploid.

Wenying shook her head when she heard this, "It's either a triploid or simply difficult to pollinate. I propagated 215 plants of the first generation, which produced three pods and 15 seeds. There were only these fifteen plants of the second generation, and after they grew, I selected three for tissue culture, and cultivated 750 plants for cultivation. After they grew, they produced a total of seven pods."

"Is it a lack of nutrients? A problem with planting density? Water?" Shi Juan helped to suggest several possibilities, all of which were common reasons why peas did not bear fruit.

Wenying smiled and shook her head. "I'm doing a group comparison experiment. I suspect that the nutrient requirements may be unique. I'm afraid that the requirements for a certain trace element are special. In this case, this variety has no value for promotion at all. It's a complete failure."

Wenying thought of everything that Shijuan could think of.

Since nutrients and trace elements were mentioned, Qi Ruomu also mentioned several possibilities. Wenying had never thought of some of them, so she wrote them down and planned to try them out.

The three professionals were chatting animatedly.
-
Luo Yihang couldn't understand what was being said and his mind started to wander.

Why did an idea suddenly come to Qi Ruomu, prompting him to ask his senior sister?

Also asked about the failed varieties.

It actually exists?
Peas, fruitless peas, fast growing???

Wait, November.

Luo Yihang hurriedly dragged his chair over and interrupted the three professionals: "Ms. Wen, you just said that this kind of fast-growing peas has no promotion value. I think the promotion value is too great. It's better if it doesn't bear fruit."

"What do you mean!" Wenying's eyebrows were about to rise again, but the person speaking was Luo Yihang, a stranger she had never met before, so she held back and relaxed her eyebrows.

Luo Yihang could see that Wenying was not in a good mood, so he quickly explained, "This is the best variety of pea tips. Do you like eating pea tips?"

"Pea tips? Eat? What does that mean?" Wenying asked three questions in a row, leaving Luo Yihang stunned.

Then he turned his head to look at Qi Ruomu. Qi Ruomu thought for a while and said, "I've eaten here a few times when I went to Sichuan Province. It's not bad."

Look at Shi Juan again.

Shi Juan shook her head, indicating that she had never eaten it and didn't know.

Luo Yihang understood that pea tips were actually a regional vegetable.

Even those who study agriculture don’t know.

Yes, studying agriculture does not mean that you know all types of vegetables, just like studying computer science does not necessarily mean you know all hardware parameters.

Those who specialize in studying vegetable varieties from different places are chefs.

Then Luo Yihang taught the three people literacy.

"Pea tips are the young and tenderest part of peas. They are light, fresh and a little sweet. They can be used in noodles, hot pots or wontons, and can make the simplest bowl of noodles shine. It is the must-have dish for Sichuan and Chongqing people in winter and is an eternal deity."

"In Sichuan and Chongqing, the tip of peas is called pea tip."

"There's a saying that goes, to judge whether a person loves you or not, just look at whether he puts more peas in his bowl or in the bowl he gives you when he's cooking noodles."

"Also, people from Sichuan and Chongqing have been visiting other people's homes since they were young. They never look at the decoration of other people's homes to see if the family is rich or not. They only look at whether the peas they pick are tender and firm. The sense of wealth is in their bones."

“No matter how small a noodle shop in Sichuan or Chongqing is, as long as it can make the peas tender and hot enough, it is a shop worthy of respect.”

As for Tianhan, the living habits are very similar to those in Sichuan and Chongqing. Luo Yihang has known these little tricks since he was a child.

But the other three people had no reaction at all. They didn’t understand, they weren’t clear, they didn’t know, and they had no intuitive feeling.

Luo Yihang had to lower the standard of popular science to common knowledge for children under 10 years old in Sichuan and Chongqing, and told them: "The quantity of pea sprouts is the largest from November to January every year, and the tenderest and most delicious time is only one month. If you miss it, you will miss it for a whole year."

"Ms. Wen, your fast-growing peas grow fast, but the plants are weak, rarely bloom, and do not bear fruit. They are simply born to be pinched for pea tips."

“This is to save the lives of people in Sichuan and Chongqing.”

Luo Yihang's words were exaggerated, making Wenying shake her head. "Do you have a photo of Pea Tip? What's his condition? Let me take a look."

Luo Yihang took out his cell phone, searched, found a photo of pea tips that he thought was suitable, and showed it to Wenying.

Wenying looked up the cultivation records and compared them with the photos to find the growth cycle. "This is the 15 to 17-day state. If you only pinch the top buds and remove the apical dominance, the growth will be very rapid."

After that, Wenying flipped through the cultivation records again, "I have a control group that was toppled, and it took eight days to grow to this state again."

"In other words, we can harvest once every eight days?" Luo Yihang keenly discovered the key point, "Then how many times can it be repeated?"

"I haven't tried this." Wenying shook her head.

Shi Juan suddenly raised her hand and said, "Ten to twelve times. I used peas to test the number of cell divisions in vine plants."

Qi Ruomu also said, "Theoretically, plant tissue cells can divide infinitely, but in reality it is definitely impossible. Ten to twelve times should be a feasible number."

With their endorsement, Luo Yihang clapped his hands and said, "It's settled, Ms. Wen, can you authorize me to grow peas? Then I'll start growing peas."

(End of this chapter)