armiphlage: Ukraine (Default)
armiphlage ([personal profile] armiphlage) wrote in [personal profile] danieldwilliam 2022-06-27 11:01 pm (UTC)

Re: Food

Another advantage to indoor farming is that you can breed smaller, shorter plants with less stover and more usable crop.

One reason Norman Borlaug saved so many lives was that his semi-dwarf wheat spent less time and energy growing stalks than traditional crops, and thus produced more edible parts. Without a need to resist weather, insects, and extremes in temperature, we could develop crops with spindly stems, little to no bran, and leaves that just sprawl on the growing medium.

White Leghorn hybrid chickens in an indoor factory farm lay an order of magnitude more eggs than a Southeast Asian Red Junglefowl. We might optimize crops the same way.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting