I See through Everything

He immediately called him back.

"Hey, Haozi, sorry. I was in the lab just now and didn’t have my phone on me."

"Haha, I knew you had to be busy."

"Have you really made up your mind?"

"Yeah, I’m planning to start with about eight acres of oil tea as a trial. How are things on your end?"

"Eight acres? That could work. How about this? Your oil tea orchard can be an experimental field for my company. I’ll give you a subsidy of six thousand yuan per acre per year, for three years straight."

"Sanshui, you don’t have to do that! I know you’re worried about me, but I can manage on my own for two or three years."

"No, I’m serious. This is a new variety, after all. Experimental planting requires careful work. Just take the subsidy. Don’t be polite with me."

"Alright, then!"

"By the way, the first batch of tissue-cultured seedlings ready for grafting probably won’t be ready to send over until early spring next year."

"I know." Li Hao was an agronomy major, after all.

Jiang Miao had previously mentioned discovering the new variety from a feral, large-fruited oil tea tree. It would be impossible to get all the grafting scions from that single mother tree, especially for large-scale promotion. The only way was through tissue culture propagation.

It would take over half a year, which was actually very fast.

According to Jiang Miao’s estimates, after the mutated tea seeds sprouted and took root, it would take about three months under laboratory conditions for the plants to reach a height of one meter.

However, for secondary tissue culture, the plants didn’t need to grow to one meter. Buds and leaves could be collected for propagation once the plants were just over ten centimeters tall.

This meant that over the next eight months or so, through laboratory tissue culture, they could produce four generations of oil tea seedlings, with each generation taking two months.

Each generation could increase the scale by 50 times.

Meaning: 1 → 50 → 2,500 → 125,000.

By March of next year, the number of fourth-generation tissue-cultured oil tea seedlings could reach 125,000.

This scale would be enough to graft 125,000 oil tea trees in March, which is equivalent to about 415 acres.

If that wasn’t enough, they could continue to expand production through tissue culture.

Producing enough grafted seedlings for tens of thousands of acres within a year wouldn’t be a problem.

However, at this rate, Li Hao’s orchard wouldn’t be able to handle such a massive number of seedlings. Hailufeng Company would have to operate its own oil tea orchards.

As for why not sell them to other oil tea growers...

There were many reasons.

One reason was that selling new varieties of seedlings required a series of administrative procedures. Currently, Hailufeng Company needed to register the genetic profile of the new Oil King series of oil tea as soon as possible, and then apply for other permits from the local Bureau of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

With Hailufeng Company’s local influence, obtaining such approvals wouldn’t be too difficult.

But having the legal paperwork didn’t mean they could start selling immediately.

After all, the growers weren’t fools. They wouldn’t just mindlessly purchase Hailufeng Company’s new oil tea seedlings after hearing a brief introduction.

Therefore, from the beginning, Hailufeng Company had to start by growing the oil tea on a small scale itself.

Of course, what Jiang Miao called "small scale" was actually a scale of at least several thousand acres, which was necessary to demonstrate the production advantage of the Oil King series.

With this idea in mind, he found some time to go to his office at headquarters and summoned Vice General Manager Jiang Haibo.

"Haibo, the company plans to add a new branch in the Gannan Region dedicated to oil tea cultivation. At the same time, we need to establish an Agricultural Planting Division within the company. I need you to start the initial screening for personnel as soon as possible. I’ll make time to conduct interviews and assessments."

Jiang Haibo jotted this down while asking, "Boss, how many people will the new branch and division need?"

Jiang Miao had already worked out the details in his head before coming, so he stated his requirements directly: "The branch will need at least 50 people, and the new division will need 10. The manager of the Agricultural Planting Division will be Lü Weibin, the current manager of Nanhu Farm. For now, Lü Weibin will also continue to oversee Nanhu Farm, but I will select a new manager to take it over as soon as possible."

"Boss, in that case, why don’t we reorganize some of the production departments?" Jiang Haibo suggested, taking the opportunity.

"Tell me more," Jiang Miao said, taking a sip of tea.

"The Agricultural Planting Division can manage Nanhu Farm, the Qiongzhou Branch, the Gannan Branch, and any future agricultural ventures. To create a clear distinction, I suggest we uniformly call the heads of specific industrial sites ’Directors,’ while the department heads at corporate headquarters will be called ’Managers.’"

Jiang Miao put down his teacup and thought for a moment. "That works. In that case, your title of Vice General Manager is no longer quite suitable. Let’s change it to General Manager of the company."

"Understood." Jiang Haibo had no objections to this, since his current scope of work was already that of a general manager.

No matter how his title changed, his actual authority wouldn’t increase much. The company was still Jiang Miao’s one-man show—an innate characteristic of a sole proprietorship.

Following that, Jiang Miao gave a few more instructions.

As soon as the Agricultural Planting Division was established, he planned to begin a large-scale expansion, acquiring numerous mountain plantations.

The plantations in Gan Province would all be converted into oil tea orchards.

Meanwhile, the plantations in Qiongzhou and Eastern Guangdong would be used for the future durian cultivation business.

To rapidly expand production capacity in the short term, they had to lay the proper groundwork. Fortunately, Hailufeng Company had massive capital reserves and a constant influx of cash flow, so funding wasn’t a concern.

But simply having plantations wasn’t enough.

For the future large-scale production of oil tea and durian, they had to prepare in advance, which included establishing supporting processing plants.

This was a necessary path for many agricultural commodity producers.

Hailufeng Company needed its own oil pressing plants, edible oil factories, durian puree factories, and even facilities for further, more advanced processing.

For example, the tea seed cake left after pressing the oil still contained large amounts of protein, cellulose, vitamins, and polysaccharides. These components could be further refined.

Hailufeng Company had the means to extend its industrial chain, so of course, it wouldn’t stop here.

However, there was no rush for these supporting processing plants. It would be early enough to start planning for them next year.

The more critical task at hand was to purchase large areas of orchards in Shanmei, convert them into Silk Floss Tree plantations, and then, once the genetically modified Silk Floss Tree stock was ready for grafting, they could immediately graft them. The final step would be to graft old durian scions onto them.

This would greatly shorten the time until the first batch of durians hit the market. The first harvest was expected to be ready for sale by August of the year after next.

To make a strong market entry, Jiang Miao didn’t plan to plant just a hundred acres or so of durian. He intended to launch with thousands of acres at once to create an economy of scale.