Chapter 327 - 163: Vibrant Vitality

Chapter 327: Chapter 163: Vibrant Vitality

Of course, the Monan Branch did have plans to build simple indoor cultivation facilities. These would mainly be used for growing hydroponic malt grass to supplement the dairy cows’ feed with fresh grass in the winter.

Currently, the production cost for indoor hydroponic malt grass was around 600 yuan per ton. It was barely usable, but not very cost-effective, especially since a ton of nutrient-rich fresh Purple Alfalfa only cost a little over 1,000 yuan.

Malt grass has a relatively simple nutritional profile, so it can only be a supplement, not the main source of roughage. This is a common problem with this type of hydroponically grown seed grass.

Otherwise, Purple Alfalfa wouldn’t be known as the king of forage.

Hailufeng Company still had a long way to go in planning its forage industry.

It wasn’t just the local Gongping Town Farm in Shanmei that needed a forage cultivation plan; the farms of the Gannan Branch and the Monan Branch did as well. The climates and growing conditions of the three locations were different, and all these factors had to be taken into account.

The Network Department had sent people to inspect the Gongping Town Farm specifically to develop a corresponding agricultural management app. This was intended to reduce the amount of off-the-cuff management by branch and farm managers, which would effectively cut down on waste and production fluctuations.

Ke Jiaming was the team leader who had come here to collect data.

However, the people from the Network Department weren’t with Jiang Miao; they were in another area of the Gongping Town Farm.

After inspecting a few fields of Purple Alfalfa and white clover, Jiang Miao went to check on the corn grass and ryegrass planted in a relatively low-lying area.

Bees buzzed tirelessly before him, flitting between the flowers of the Purple Alfalfa, white clover, and ryegrass.

"Liheng, how many Chinese honey bees do the beekeeping teams have in Gongping Town right now?"

"Currently, we have 28,000 hives."

Jiang Miao raised an eyebrow. "Is the nectar flow from the farm sufficient?"

Du Liheng quickly explained, "It’s sufficient. Right now, we have about 3,300 acres of forage that bloom each month. Among them, Purple Alfalfa has the highest nectar flow per unit, followed by white clover, and then ryegrass. Corn grass produces almost no nectar. All things considered, it’s roughly equivalent to 1,400 acres of Purple Alfalfa. On average, each acre can support 20 to 30 hives of Chinese honey bees, but we’re currently only placing 20 hives per acre."

"How’s the honey harvest?"

Speaking of which, Du Liheng’s face lit up with a smile. "Excellent. We can produce nearly a thousand tons of nectar honey each month."

You have to understand, the Gongping Town Farm had been a constant investment until April, when it saw its first revenue. That revenue came from honey.

Currently on the market, the purchase price for nectar honey is 6,000 to 7,000 yuan per ton. A thousand tons of nectar honey is worth 6 to 7 million yuan.

Of course, the Agricultural Division didn’t sell this nectar honey. Instead, they built a honey processing plant to concentrate it into processed honey. One thousand tons of Purple Alfalfa nectar honey can produce 360 to 420 tons of processed honey.

"What are you doing with this nectar honey?"

"It’s all being used by our own honey processing plant to produce processed honey."

"Oh? Has this product gone on sale yet?"

Du Liheng nodded. "It just hit the shelves in early May. You can buy this processed Purple Alfalfa honey in the company’s physical stores and online shop. The average retail price is 50 yuan per kilogram. It comes in three sizes: a 10-kilogram plastic bottle for 488 yuan, a 1-kilogram plastic bottle for 50 yuan, and a 100-gram glass jar for 8.8 yuan."

"How are the sales?"

"Not bad. We’re selling a few hundred kilograms a day. It’s just the beginning, so we can scale up later. Especially starting in June, the Purple Alfalfa and white clover at the Gannan Branch will start to bloom. Although harvesting honey there is difficult in the winter, the nectar source during spring, summer, and autumn is enormous. We estimate that during the nectar flow periods of those three seasons, we can produce 4,000 to 5,000 tons of nectar honey per month."

Jiang Miao’s eyebrow twitched. He asked, "Do you know what the domestic honey production capacity has been in recent years?"

"Last year it was about 580,000 tons. That’s for processed and mature honey, not nectar honey."

"It seems our production capacity hasn’t affected the domestic honey market yet." Jiang Miao knew that Hailufeng Company’s current honey output was small and wouldn’t have much impact on ordinary beekeepers.

However, another question occurred to him. "Liheng, how is the beekeeping office at the Gannan Branch handling the issues of overwintering and the toxicity of tea-oil camellia honey?"

"For overwintering, we manage it through a reasonable autumn honey harvest. Plus, the Gannan Region has a small amount of wild nectar sources in the winter, and we can still collect tea-oil camellia honey. It’s enough to sustain 100,000 hives of Chinese honey bees." Du Liheng continued to explain:

"Chinese honey bees are a bit more cold-resistant than Italian honey bees. Italian bees basically don’t leave the hive when the temperature drops below 10 degrees Celsius. Chinese bees are better; their minimum tolerance is 7 degrees Celsius."

"Also, Italian bees have no resistance to the toxicity of tea-oil camellia honey. The Chinese honey bees we purchased are a breed from the Xiangnan Region. The bees from that region have a relatively strong resistance to this toxicity, and consuming small amounts won’t harm their health."

"However, the beekeeping team there suggested providing the bees with some detoxifying remedies. For example, we could make a decoction with Chinese medicinal herbs like licorice root and honeysuckle, add a suitable amount of syrup, and prepare it in a certain ratio to feed them as a detox syrup. We could also add nutrients like Vitamin C and yeast tablets to strengthen the bees’ constitution and help them detoxify more effectively."

Jiang Miao rubbed the stubble on his chin. ’These detoxification plans for the bees don’t seem reliable,’ he thought. After all, these methods were most likely based on anecdotal experience, lacking standardized dosages from rigorous experiments. He decided he would have to make a trip to the Gannan Branch in the winter to come up with a more scientific, low-cost, and efficient detoxification solution.