Chapter Eighty-Eight: Nutrient Deficiency (Please Subscribe)

When they heard the words roasted whole lamb, everyone’s eyes lit up at once. Anyone from the northwest felt a special fondness for it.

“Come on, all of you, get back to work. With food this good, how can you not put your backs into it?”

Someone in the crowd shouted.

At that, the uncles who had been resting rose one after another, full of enthusiasm, and headed back toward the fields.

Those who were laying bricks laid bricks, those mixing mud mixed mud, and those building walls built walls.

“Zhong Di, should we slaughter a big sheep or a small one?” Shao Hong asked.

“A big one,” Zhong Di said. With so many people, a little lamb would never be enough.

For roasted whole lamb, a young lamb is tender and delicious, but with so many mouths to feed, slaughtering a small one would truly fall short. Better to go straight for a full-grown sheep.

Fed regularly with the Wild Sand Fairy Sprout, the meat of a mature sheep should not be bad either.

Before the bloody scene had even begun, Zhong Di noticed two vehicles parked outside the garden. One of them was the Porsche he knew well.

Behind the Porsche was a truck, and behind that truck was a frame structure wrapped in shade netting.

“Shao Hong, go and slaughter the sheep first. I’ve got something to handle here. Take the people and butcher them first; I’ll come over in a bit.”

“Sure, go ahead.” Shao Hong answered, then led the others off to catch the sheep.

Baaa, baaa, baaa. Soon the sheep’s cries rang out. Under normal circumstances, if one wanted to put a sheep down painlessly, one could feed it alcohol and slaughter it after it got drunk. It was said that this way the sheep would not release fearful emotions, and the meat would taste much better.

Whether that was true or not, Zhong Di did not know. But he had eaten sheep from childhood until now, and they had always been slaughtered directly. The meat had never been a problem.

“Zhong Di, hurry, help me take a look. Please.” As soon as Sun Miao Miao got out of the car, she was tense and wanted Zhong Di to examine it for her.

Zhong Di glanced at her. Today Sun Miao Miao was dressed with none of her usual extravagance; she was simply plain, and in ordinary clothes it was easy to see that her heart was not on appearances.

This time, it seemed she really was anxious. Otherwise she would never have looked like this. On ordinary days she cared so much about how she looked, yet today she was in such a state.

Still, there was a kind of untidy beauty to her now, and more warmth than usual. It felt as though what had once been ten steps away was now only five.

After sizing her up, Zhong Di climbed straight into the truck. The vehicle seemed to have been specially modified, as though it had been made from the start for this potted lemon tree; every piece of equipment had been custom built around it.

Could this truck have been specially arranged by Sun Miao Miao for the potted lemon tree? The thought suddenly surfaced in Zhong Di’s mind.

He first looked at it with the naked eye. The whole lemon tree stood about eight and a half feet tall, with a canopy roughly four and a half feet across. It did not look overly bulky, and the proportions were quite pleasing.

A lemon tree belongs to the citrus family and naturally carries a fragrant scent in its leaves and branches.

A few lemons hung sparsely on the tree. They were large, but still green-skinned.

Compared with yellow-skinned lemons, green-skinned lemons are better suited to pot culture. In truth, the two kinds of lemon are not very different; the distinction lies mainly in varietal traits.

Zhong Di did not know this area very well.

Ah, as expected, it was sick.

Looking at the tender young leaves above, Zhong Di confirmed that it was indeed ill. It was impossible to tell by sight alone.

In general, when older leaves show problems first, one can guess that a major nutrient is off. When tender shoots and leaves show problems first, one can guess that a trace element is the issue.

But these are only rough directions, not exact judgments.

Take phosphorus, for example.

When a plant lacks phosphorus, its leaves usually become dark green, and the stems of most annual plants show the typical reddish-purple symptom.

These signs first appear on older leaves, then gradually spread to younger shoots and foliage.

Take zinc, for example.

When a plant lacks zinc, its leaves often lose color and turn yellow, while the young shoots stop growing, the leaves become small, and they cluster together.

Was this chlorosis, or something else? Zhong Di looked at the leaves.

No matter. He would not guess anymore.

The moment the idea of judging by sight collapsed, Zhong Di took the initiative to connect with the lemon tree, and immediately sensed its emotions.

This was still a lemon tree with spirit to it; it seemed to have been around for quite some time.

In an instant, a flood of information began surfacing in Zhong Di’s mind.

Watering time, soil organic matter from seven days ago...

He went through each item one by one, swiftly skipping those that showed no problems.

Overall, the lemon tree had been cared for quite well. The soil, watering, and pruning all seemed fine.

The only issue lay in the nutrients.

The biggest difference between potted plants and ground-planted ones was right here. Even if a ground-planted plant was short of something, the soil would usually contain some of it, creating a buffer period.

Potted plants did not have that advantage. As soon as they lacked some element, it would show immediately. If it could not be corrected quickly, the plant would suffer severe damage. That was one of the main reasons potted cultivation was so much more difficult than growing in the ground.

For most plants, whether fruit trees or flowers, if they were planted in the ground, the soil might look poor, yet they would still grow beautifully. But once potted, even if one threw every nutrient at them, the results might still be disappointing.

For this reason, soil nutrient content mattered greatly, especially trace elements.

Plants use trace elements in very small amounts, so they are extremely difficult to judge. Too much, and fertilizer injury appears; too little, and things still do not work. In two words: a headache.

Major nutrients were fine, secondary nutrients were fine, which meant there was only one remaining possibility: the trace elements. The problem had to be there.

Zhong Di judged them one by one.

Boron, 83 g per kg. Hmm, no problem. A little on the high side. It seemed some boron fertilizer had been applied recently, which made sense during flowering.

Zinc, 162 g per kg. That was a bit excessive. Generally speaking, for plants, even fruit trees, the zinc content per kilogram should not exceed 150 milligrams. This was a little too much. Zhong Di noted it down and planned to mention it to Sun Miao Miao later.

Manganese, 268 g per kg. Slightly high, but not an immediate problem.

As Zhong Di continued checking them one by one, he found that every trace element was on the high side. This should have been the result of Sun Miao Miao’s recent attempts to supplement nutrients; otherwise such a condition would not have appeared.

When a plant developed this kind of problem, it was neither the water’s fault nor the soil’s. If temperature, humidity, and all other conditions were suitable, then what else could it be? Nutrients, of course. Just replenish them and it would be fine.

Sun Miao Miao’s approach was not wrong; she had simply not supplemented in the right amount.

Iron, 363 g per kg. Damn, that was far too much lacking. Zhong Di knew where the problem was: iron deficiency.

Iron deficiency was also a common issue in potted plants—neither too big nor too small, but troublesome all the same.