Chapter 316: Important winter wheat
1.5 billion pounds of rye! More accurately, it should be 1.518 billion pounds. Among them, East Frisian Lambert has 120,000 Ugram land, and Marin owns 80,000 Ugram. The remaining 40,000 Yugrams were awarded to the meritorious soldiers, and some of them were the land of the supporters of the Brock family, and some were the land of a few old nobles who had surrendered to Marin.
The local 120,000 Ugram land has an average yield of about 520 pounds per mu and a total output of 750 million pounds. Of these, 500 million pounds belong to Marin ’s estate, and 250 million pounds belong to the nobles and officers.
The 160,000 Ugram rye fields in Oldenburg and Principality of Schleswig have a total output of 768 million pounds, with an average yield of about 400 pounds per mu. And Marin forcibly entrusted 120,000 of Yugram's arable land. Excluding planting costs (such as seeds and animal power) and serf costs (including food), and the 50 pounds of rye per acre paid to the nobles under trust, Malin can earn an average of 250 pounds of rye per mu. In total, Marin can also obtain 360 million pounds of rye on the 120,000 Ugram's managed land. Counting the 500 million pounds of rye produced by the 80,000 Yougram's arable land, the new grain harvested by Malin's autumn harvest reached a horrible 860 million pounds.
In addition, in the Jever region, Marin changed the local cultivated land to 8,000 yograms, all of which were changed to oats to meet the needs of horses. During the autumn harvest, those oat fields produced about 200 pounds per mu, and a total of 19.2 million pounds of oats were harvested. In this way, the horses in the territory, together with the alfalfa grasses promoted by Malin, will not worry about feed.
What's more, soybeans are also produced in large quantities in the two islands of North America. At that time, the war horse will enjoy the high treatment of soybeans and oats in exchange.
Because of the bumper harvest year after year, the nobles and officials under Marin have become rich. Becoming a rich man will naturally pay attention to the quality of life. Rye bread has been tasted a bit bitter, so it has been ignored by nobles. Now, the aristocrats of East Frisian Lambertian, as soon as the autumn harvest is over, send the grain to Marin, and let the shipping company of Marin sell rye abroad. In addition, they proposed-want to use rye for wheat.
Because the nobles were addicted to eating white bread. After eating soft white bread with butter, the nobles under Marin's no longer wanted to eat dark bread.
White bread is made from wheat flour sifted from wheat bran, fermented with beer yeast, and added with spices, cream and honey and other ingredients, it tastes very sweet. Well, about the level of the bakery in later generations.
From frugality to extravagance is easy, from extravagance to frugality is difficult. Because it is not bad money, the current East Frisian nobles have changed to white bread instead of the rustic and bitter brown bread.
You know, in the early Middle Ages, white bread was also called queen bread, and only the nobles could afford it. If any soldier was awarded the "Queen Bread" by the King, that would be a very high honor.
The reason why wheat bread is so expensive is because wheat production is too low ...
If one hundred pounds of rye per mu is considered real estate, then the per mu yield of wheat is only a few dozen pounds in most parts of Western Europe. Even in many areas, the wheat harvest ratio is only 1 to 2. What does this mean? That is to say, if 30 pounds of wheat seeds are planted on an acre of land, only 60 pounds of wheat can be harvested in autumn ...
According to the data read by Marin in the previous life, during the Middle Ages in England, the wheat yield per acre (here referred to as acre) was 8-9 bushels. And a bushel of wheat is 58 pounds. In terms of conversion, the yield of wheat in one city is only 77.3 ~ 87 pounds.
Because of low yields and a warm climate, wheat in this era is very expensive, about five times the price of rye.
The reason why wheat production is low is that Marin, a pseudo-agricultural expert, believes that there are two main factors. The first is the lack of fertilizer. Without fertilization, where is high yield? The second is the low level of irrigation in Europe.
Wheat and rye are different. Rye itself is a hybrid product of wild grass and wheat. It has the gene of wild grass and has strong vitality. Wheat is much weaker.
During the growing period of wheat, especially in the early stage, the water demand is large. If not irrigated manually, it will cause water shortage, which greatly affects production. Because, if water is scarce early, it will lead to poor wheat development.
However, Europeans severely lacked irrigation techniques for traps in the Middle Ages. In fact, as early as the Roman Empire, the Romans had advanced irrigation technology, and also made advanced things like volcanic ash cement.
However, after the demise of Western Rome, many trap technologies in Europe were lost, and technology backed up for hundreds of years, almost returning to the level before the establishment of the Roman Empire.
Therefore, the European farmers in the Middle Ages did not know how to dig irrigation canals, let alone the trenches used for flood irrigation. Therefore, for wheat with large water requirements, Western Europeans are not good at planting. The yield per mu is around tens of pounds.
Conversely, because rye has genes for wild grasses, it does not require much management and requires little water, making it suitable for low-tech Europeans. Therefore, in the Middle Ages, rye became the mainstream, and wheat, only a few people grow. Against this background, the price of wheat is expensive, so it makes sense.
A few decades ago, the Italians introduced advanced irrigation technology from the Arab region, that is, the technology of excavating irrigation canals and water trenches. So, on the Italian side, began to focus on growing wheat. Because of the sufficient water supply, the wheat production in Italy is very high, almost the same as rye.
Therefore, Italy is legendary as a treasure. For example, Sicily has the title of "Golden Basin".
However, Europeans in this era were stupid. Europeans in other countries do n’t know that this is because Italy introduced the advanced irrigation technology in the Arab region, and thought it was fertile soil in Italy.
In order to occupy this fertile soil, the two major powers of France and Spain, aimed at Italy, intending to annex this fertile soil.
Then, there was the "Italian War" that lasted for decades ...
If the Italians knew it, because they introduced the advanced irrigation technology of the Arabs, they would be coveted by the demon and the duck, and they must regret it. Or, they will offer advanced irrigation technology to the two major powers. However, this matter, don't say that the demon and the duck are unclear. The Italians can't explain it themselves, and they really think it's credit for volcanic ash soil. Although volcanic ash soil is indeed more fertile than normal soil, this is not the only reason ...
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Marin couldn't help crying when he heard that all the nobles asked him to take rye to the south in exchange for wheat in order to make white bread for them. Is n’t it just wheat bread?
Originally ~ www.wuxiaspot.com ~ Marin planned to grow wheat in the country. However, considering that it is now in the early part of the Little Ice Age, northern Germany is colder and rye is easier to grow.
Therefore, Marin planned to open up a large number of wheat fields in North America, where the summer temperature is high, and grow wheat there. Moreover, winter wheat is grown.
The reason why winter wheat is not spring wheat is because winter wheat is more delicious ...
As it happens, the autumn harvest is now over and it is the season for planting winter wheat. To this end, Marin sent a boat to bring a lot of wheat to the Twin Islands, so that the new Governor of Twin Islands, on the newly developed Columbus Island, opened up a large area of land for winter wheat. By next summer, the winter wheat will be almost ripe, and it will be transported back for consumption by the domestic nobles.
Moreover, Da Vinci has successfully developed the Archimedes screw pump according to Marin's requirements. There are steam engines and screw pumps, don't irrigate the farmland too easily. No matter how much water is needed for wheat, can there be steam engines and Archimedes screw pumps?
The reason why Marin did not choose to grow wheat locally is precisely for this reason. The steam engine cannot be exposed at present, otherwise, Marin will want to seize the coal-rich Ruhr area, there will be many competitors, the difficulty will be greatly increased. After all, knowing the big uses of coal, the coal mines in the Ruhr area will become sweet and sour, attracting many people to fight for it.
Unlike in the two islands of North America, this is very remote, and no people from other countries come. The use of steam engines and pumps here is unseen, and does not affect Marin ’s seizure of the Ruhr area. When the Ruhr area is available and the steam engine is available in Europe, there will be no problem. Moreover, in this era, with the technological level of other countries, without reference to the real thing, if you want to imitate, the difficulty is absolutely hell-level ...
