The most problematic problem is phosphate fertilizer. Several people thought about it for a long time. The most easily obtained natural phosphate fertilizer is animal bones. The Committee of Agriculture has been using leftover fish bones from seafood processing plants, fish residue to fertilize fields, and occasionally animal bones.
.But now we need to improve 1,500 acres of land, where will so many bones come from?
Applying plant ash can also supplement phosphorus fertilizer, but it still involves a problem: insufficient quantity.
A group of people thought hard for a long time and finally decided to call Luo Duo.
Luo Duo is now working in the Social Department of the Political Security Bureau, working on illegal materials every day, and has a fulfilling life, but he still continues to act as a living dictionary every day after work.
Wu Nanhai's question is: How to make phosphate fertilizer without phosphate rock?
"This is easy." Luo Duo said, "boiled plant ashes..."
"I know this, and I also know the animal bones, but I have to fertilize 1,500 acres of land that is severely deficient in phosphorus."
"Go to the metallurgical department and ask for steel slag." Luo Duo said, "I remember they use a small converter, right? It's just right." He continued, "Steel slag is mixed with lime to get a kind of soil phosphate fertilizer."
The slag-making process in converter steelmaking uses sand to create acidic slag to replace the phosphorus in pig iron. Therefore, converter slag contains a considerable amount of phosphorus.
"Okay." Wu Nanhai quickly called the Metallurgical Department.
Ji Wusheng told him that most of the steel slag accumulated after steelmaking has been used as paving materials, and there are only a few tons left in the steel plant.
"A few tons will be enough." Fa Shilu said, "Let's make do with it first. If it's not enough, use a large amount of plant ash, and ask the students of the national school to launch a campaign to recycle the plant ash. Then add a large amount of peat."
"I wonder if the Foreign Trade Commission later took care of Nanbao?"
The lignite and peat produced by Nanbao's coal mines are the main source of fertilizer for Lingao in modern time and space. Travelers will naturally not miss it. However, Nanbao is close to Li District and is in a hilly area, so the remote exploration team has been there several times.
, thinking that their mining investment is too large and the distance is too far, which is almost equivalent to opening a separate base. It is best to let the locals mine and then purchase and expropriate the model.
But so far, this matter has not been done. The locals have little interest in mining this kind of black coal, and even if the Cross Group is willing to purchase it, no one is willing to mine and transport it.
After Wu Nanhai reported the need for lignite as fertilizer to the executive committee, Wu De decided without further ado and simply adopted the method of compulsory apportionment to collect it. So he sent people to call the liaison officers from the villages near Nanbao and asked them
Each village was given the task of mining and transporting several "big kilograms" of lignite to Bairen - in return, their grain dues could be compensated at a discount with lignite and peat.
"Thank you so much." Wu Nanhai almost burst into tears with gratitude, "In fact, it would be better to have phosphate rock..."
"I have no place to look for this." Wu De said helplessly, "There is no such thing locally."
"Why don't we sail to Yulingang for mining?" Wu Nanhai said. He saw in the bulletin that phosphate rock was found near Tiandu.
Ma Qianxu shook his head: "The phosphate rock in Yulin is not near the sea. It has to go more than ten kilometers inland. There are no roads and equipment, and it will not be transported back within a month."
"That's it." Wu Nanhai looked disappointed, "Can you think of a way to send a small-scale mining team to collect a dozen tons?"
"This -" Ma Qianzhu thought for a moment. The Committee of Agriculture was not the only one who needed phosphorus. The Ministry of Chemical Industry and the Weapons Group had all made proposals to him for phosphate rock. He asked everyone to wait patiently for the development of Tiandu.
It will take half a year. Other than that, the food issue is not easy to deal with.
"I'm going to ask the Ministry of Resources if there is any economical and quick way." Ma Qianxu shook the phone on the table:
"Switchboard, I'm the Planning Committee, connecting to Office 22."
"The fastest solution is to go to Dongsha Island and collect struvite." The person who answered the phone from the remote exploration team was their secretary Zhao Xue. "Looking at the resource map, this is not far from Dongsha, and there are mountains of struvite on the island.
, open-pit mining is also easy. Shipping a boat back is enough."
"It would be better if there is struvite," Wu Nanhai said. Struvite is not only rich in phosphorus, but also contains nitrogen and potassium. It is a natural compound fertilizer. Now even potassium fertilizer is saved.
"Okay, let's dispatch the navy." Ma Qianzhu immediately agreed, "Invite the People's Commissar of the Navy Chen Haiyang to come. Let's plan the ships to dispatch."
Wu Nanhai was simply flattered. This efficiency and courage made him feel much better than having to "discuss and discuss everything".
At that moment, we decided to set off on the Zhenhai to dig out struvite - as the saying goes, time waits for no one. It takes more than ten days to send a sailboat, and a hybrid boat is much more convenient. After all, tacking is a technical job, and there are only a few brothers from the Qian family in North America who can travel through the sea.
Personally, they are quite experienced - they have played with small sailboats after all.
The Zhenhai commanded by Lin Chuanqing quickly found Dongsha Island according to the route map. The island is about 2.5 kilometers wide and has a very flat terrain with no peaks, but there are many coconut trees. A large number of seabirds are constantly circling, taking off and landing over the island.
.Flying up and down around Zhenhai’s mast, leaving some “gifts” for the sailors on the deck from time to time.
"Hell!" Lin Chuanqing cursed and spat. His hat had already been baptized. The fishermen were somewhat superstitious and felt that this thing was unlucky.
"With so many birds, there must be a lot of struvite stones." Bai Guoshi said with great interest.
"To hell with your struvite." Lin Chuanqing put on a straw hat for himself, "Why did I end up on such a task!"
The route of Dongsha Island. Lin Chuanqing, who was born as a fisherman and has been a smuggler for many years, knows where it is without a navigation chart, but he has never been close to this place in the past - there are Taiwanese marines on it, and it will be troublesome to check if anything happens.
If you have a bad temper, it would be even more off-putting to think that you are engaging in espionage activities and reward you with a bunch of bullets.
"The water is 8.3 meters deep and the distance is 3 ropes!" the sailor reported loudly.
"Slow down, put down the boat, and measure the water!" Lin Chuanqing ordered. Then several sailors put down the boat and rowed towards the island.
Bai Guoshi said: "There is a lagoon on Dongsha Island. Can't we just drive the boat into it?"
"It's too shallow." Lin Chuanqing shook his head. Although he had not been to Dongsha Island, he had heard that the lagoon on Dongsha Island was very shallow. "It is less than 1 meter at low tide. If you go in, you will be stranded."
The entire Dongsha Island is crescent-shaped, covering an area of about one square kilometer. There is a lagoon in the west of the island. This lagoon is less than 1 meter deep at low tide, and the width at the exit is only 20 meters. It has almost no value as a coral island anchorage. Because the lagoon
The opening is extremely small, resulting in very little water exchange, causing long-term accumulation of organic debris at the bottom of the lake; overall, it is similar to a coastal swamp ecosystem, and completely different from the clear water and coral-rich lagoons on common coral islands.
Not the same. Several tourists who originally wanted to enjoy the scenery of tropical coral islands were disappointed.
The ship was guided by the water measuring ship and sailed around the west side of the island. Dongsha Island is actually the only one in a series of atolls that is exposed to the water. The diameter of the entire Dongsha Atoll is about 20 kilometers, and ships can sail into this lagoon to anchor.
However, due to the lack of coral reef dams exposed above the water, its value as a harbor shelter is limited.
"Stop! Drop anchor!" Lin Chuanqing maneuvered the boat as close to the island shore as possible, and did not drop anchor until the front keel was almost touching the bottom.
"Assemble the pontoon!" Lin Chuanqing continued to issue orders.
Excavation of struvite requires moving heavy objects, and there is no lagoon on Dongsha Island for large ships to berth. It is too inefficient to use small boats to go back and forth, so Zhenhai brought a group of floating trestles to be temporarily built between the beach and the ships.
"Is there anyone on the island? Do you want everyone to bring weapons?" Bai Guoshi asked Lin Chuanqing. He put his pistol into a waterproof holster.
"Probably not. Summer is not the fishing season. Fishermen don't come here. But there are a lot of sharks here." Lin Chuanqing raised a loudspeaker and shouted: "Everyone, be careful, there are a lot of sharks in the sea! Don't fall into the water. You are injured.
Come back to the ship immediately and don’t pee in the sea! Don’t panic when you see a shark..."
The lagoon of Dongsha Island itself is rich in organic debris at the bottom. When the lake water flows out to the nearby sea, it creates a feeding inducement, attracting sharks and other creatures that hunt by smell to follow the water flow to the vicinity of the lagoon. Therefore, the sharks here
The density is extremely high. In addition to sharks, there are many ferocious predatory fish in the lagoon here, and their aggressiveness and lethality cannot be underestimated.
Two more small boats were lowered, and the sailors untied the pontoons from the hull and began to connect them with iron chains. Lin Chuanqing warned the sailors on the ship that they were armed with live ammunition and guarded both sides of the ship. Each small boat was also equipped with
He hired a specialized shark guard, carrying a harpoon, and wearing chain arm armor and gloves made of thin iron rings on his arms.
Sure enough, there are many sharks in the lagoon, and there are many kinds. In the clear water, you can clearly see these ocean kings swimming around happily. Everyone is very nervous. When they are nervous, their movements become deformed, and the floating trestle is distorted.
It took twice as long as usual to build it. The nearly 100-meter-long pontoon was undulating on the sea, and shark fins could be seen emerging from the water around it. The faces of the first batch of people who landed through the pontoon turned pale. Originally,
Many of the travelers who planned to visit the island decided not to go there at all.
Because Bai Guoshi was responsible for guiding the mining of struvite, he had no choice but to get off the boat, hold his breath and walk across the pontoon tremblingly to the island. This place is not the same as the overview of Dongsha Island that he had learned in geography.
No different.
The terrain of the entire island is slightly higher in the northeast, slightly lower in the southwest, and low-lying in the middle. The average altitude is about five or six meters. The highest point is about ten meters high in the northeast. The entire island is high on all sides and low in the middle. The central lowland is shallow.
The lagoon occupies about one-third of the island, and the mouth of the lake opens to the west.