Chapter 29

The greenhouse farm in Chen Xin’s bunker was not big. It was only one hundred square meters, which was one hectare, or one-sixth of an acre.

Chen Xin had made a mistake there. When building the greenhouse, the construction team asked him how big he wanted to build it. He mistook hectare for acres. In consequence, the area of the greenhouse was six times smaller than planned.

In Chen Xin’s original plan, it would be used to grow upland rice and vegetables. That would provide him enough food to guarantee his normal consumption and to exchange for resources.

However, the output was far from enough as he had made a mistake in his calculations.

The yield per acre of upland rice was about nine hundred pounds, and it would drop to about seven hundred after the rice was dehusked. One hectare was equivalent to only about one-sixth of an acre, so the projected yield would be just over one hundred pounds then.

The total amount of rice that an adult needed to eat in a year was about three hundred pounds. In addition to that, they would need to eat the same amount of meat and vegetables. In other words, if Chen Xin wanted to maintain a healthy body, he must eat at least five to six hundred pounds of food a year.

As food was the main provider of energy to humans, perhaps his food consumption would only increase because the surface temperatures would drop to sub-zero.

In that predicament, Chen Xin had already given up on meat. However, even if he could harvest rice twice a year, his yield would be around three hundred pounds at best. Despite that, he still would not have sufficient space to plant vegetables.

Three hundred pounds of rice could never meet Chen Xin’s needs for a year.

Chen Xin had intended to plant half an acre of upland rice for himself, to begin with. The other half would be used to plant carrots, cabbages, lettuces, and other vegetables.

Other than providing enough vegetables for himself, he would also trade for resources with other bunkers using the surpluses.

After all, doomsday had arrived. There was no sunlight on the surface and temperatures had dropped drastically. The farming of crops and vegetables could only depend on those greenhouses.

Having a greenhouse that could grow food and vegetables was a guarantee toward one’s living quality and food supply. At least Chen Xin could still rely on the greenhouse to survive when there were no other food sources available.

In addition to that, if Chen Xin had found a reliable way to produce food and vegetables in the apocalyptic era, it would turn into a very reliable source of income in the future.

At that time, exchanging fresh vegetables for other kinds of food and supplies, or even fuel would be a very feasible option.

That was just like the underground city in “Wandering Earth”. The food that everyone ate was made of earthworms. If you had suddenly brought out fresh fruits and vegetables, it could be exchanged for some rare items.

It was just that because of his calculation error, his output had shrunk to one-sixth of the original. It was not even enough to meet his consumption, how would it provide him with surpluses for trading?

If he wanted to meet his consumption for the year, the size of the greenhouse had to be at least doubled. If he wanted to produce extra to exchange resources, the size had to be at least three to four times larger.

From the get-go, Chen Xin could not expand the greenhouse. Although the greenhouse was not like the container houses, he had the construction team insulate its walls. He even poured cement into it. If he wanted to expand it, at least one side of the wall had to be knocked down, and he would need to slowly dig at the walls with a shovel.

It was true that there was nothing to do in the bunker, but to dig a hundred square meters greenhouse would take Chen Xin at least two months.

As for insulating the walls after that, he could forget about them. He did not have the right materials.

However, it was different for him at that time since he had The System.

“Basic Greenhouse Farm”

“Upgrade Plan A – Add drip irrigation system, increase the number of hydroponic grow trays, crop yield +10%, irrigation water consumption -10%, upgrade required survival points 2000”

“Upgrading Plan B – Increase planting area, improve lighting efficiency of supplementary light, crop yield +10%, lighting time -10%, upgrade required survival points 3500”

The two upgrade plans were different, but both increased the farming surface area of the greenhouse.

The hydroponic grow trays in the first plan would be set in the air. It would turn the hundred square meters greenhouse into a two-layer system, with the lower layer being used for upland rice and the upper layer for vegetables and fruits. Plus, the upgrade would increase the crop’s yield by ten percent, which would be sufficient to meet Chen Xin’s needs.

As for the second plan, it was the same as what Chen Xin had planned at first. One side of the wall would be knocked down to expand the greenhouse to two hundred square meters. That could also meet Chen Xin’s consumption needs, but compared to the first plan, the utilization of space was much lower.

Moreover, the first option also added a drip irrigation system. That was the most effecient method and could reduce the usage of up to ninety-five percent of his water resources. It was originally used for irrigation in areas where drought was common. As for Chen Xin who would face difficulty in obtaining water resources in the future, that would save him a lot of water which would otherwise be wasted.

However, Chen Xin was also interested in the improvement in the efficiency of supplementary lighting in the second upgrade plan.

Supplementary lights were used to simulate artificial sunlight. Most greenhouses needed that equipment to increase photosynthesis for the plants.

That was because most of the time, the lighting condition was not ideal. That would affect the growth of the plants, especially for expensive and delicate breeds. The supplementary lighting was necessary as plants in different stages of growth had different daily lighting requirements.

Chen Xin had four lights installed at the greenhouse. With the lights turned on for twelve hours a day, it could completely replace natural lighting and reduce lighting time for an hour, saving quite a bit of electricity.

The area was still small and the energy-saving effect was minimal, but if the area expanded and the number of lights increased, the effect would be more obvious.

However, Chen Xin was only accumulating ten points a day. He had not saved up enough survival points to spend for the upgrade, which required two to three thousand points.

Therefore, Chen Xin could only devise a plan according to the upgrade fees and importance of different rooms. As to upgrading the rooms for real, Chen Xin estimated it would take about one year.

Of course, if Chen Xin had chosen to upgrade a certain piece of equipment or item instead of the whole room, it would only take him a few months to save enough points.

However, when he considered the price-performance ratio, Chen Xin still did not want to go through the hassle of upgrading item by item.