Crops and stats (IC2 v2.8.220-ex112) 1.12.2

Hi everyone!
I'm asking myself about mechanics for crops.. Have they changed? I was trying to improve stats of my stickreed, but all my efforts were unsuccessful. I don't use neither fertilizer, nor pesticides, i just hydrate stickreed by crop-matron and grow it at 130 height in jungle biome. Just can't comprihend what i'm doing wrong

so i was like... "i'm a programmer, oh yeah! (nope)" and spent 3 hours in order to figure out smth in configs.. found it. and understood quite nothing. i'm so sick...

Simple cross breeding in the field 2x2 by this scheme, where O - is stickreed and X - double crops

OX
XO

Any new stickreed was worser than its parents.. I repeated this actions many times, but everytime the same result: worse than parents.

EHH stats started to improve.. Some magic?