
The underground farm growing salad crops in a disused air raid shelter [video] - open-source-ux
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/science-environment-49411645/does-the-future-of-farming-exist-beneath-city-streets
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squish78
"Does the future of farming (something indoors) ?"

No. It never will, despite all of the admittedly cool proof-of-concepts. The
energy required to photosynthesize will never be more economical from
artificial lighting than the sun. The future of farming (in the U.S.) is
better soil management, agro-forestry, and removing archaic systems of
subsidies which favor corn and beef to the detriment of human and
environmental health.

Underground crops are cool, but they cannot feed the planet

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dekhn
solar panels + LEDs is more efficient than direct sunlight because the panels
absorb in a wide frequency range and then the LEDs only emit at the wavelength
required for photosynthesis. This is a very recent development and it's barely
an improvement over outside growing due to overhead costs.

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squish78
How much would it cost to cover 100 acres with LEDs?

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dekhn
see my comment about overhead costs. However there are a number of interesting
details: since with LEDs you can stack plants vertically, the horizontal area
is less important. You can also keep things more compact (plants in a field
aren't particularly dense) with light coming in at multiple angles leading to
bushier plants with more growable surface area.

I guess the real question is, "what are the amortized costs of growing using
solar panels and LEDs compared to fields", and that's a super hard problem to
solve/estimate. So far, people have only been growing high-profit crops, so it
seems like the economics don't favor interior growing yet even for well-heeled
players.

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14
There are massive benefits to growing indoors in certain conditions. Areas
that were previously too hot or too cold could now be used to grow provided
you have access to power. I one day think we will have portable nuclear
generators and don't think this will be an issue. I don't think it will be
economical in every situation but I do think there will be some market for
indoor crops. The other factor I think of with indoor crops is with artificial
you can optimize it both intensity and duration for different crops so you can
also grow a bigger variety of crops in areas previously not possible. What if
we could grow almonds closer to an abundant water source, or peppers in the
frigid north closer to the people who eat them instead of shipping them large
distances.

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Havoc
This is great for exploring.

But practically anyone putting crops anywhere other than under the sun is
missing out. Taking them away from that abundant FREE source of energy
sticking it underground and then spending electricity & money to light it up
with LEDs...yeah no.

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georgeecollins
What if you were using geothermal power for LEDs to grow crops in Antarctica?
Sounds crazy but probably easier than living on Mars. :)

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Havoc
haha yes that would work.

Things like inner city growing where real estate is scarce could work too.

Just say as a whole stick plants in dark & light them with electricity is
about as stupid as it gets.

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j-c-hewitt
I too can grow salad in my basement but it's pointless when I can use the sun,
which is a mass of incandescent gas -- a giant nuclear furnace that I don't
have to pay to use.

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elektor
There is an org that does something similar in New Jersey: AeroFarms. Their
greens are sold at the local Whole Foods. It's pretty neat to get your food
grown locally.

[https://aerofarms.com/](https://aerofarms.com/)

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thinkcontext
They should grow mushrooms not salad greens. No light needed, humid
conditions, constant temp.

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open-source-ux
Mushrooms are an excellent source of vitamin D, but when they are grown in
total darkness they contain virtually no vitamin D. Some supermarkets in the
UK now sell mushrooms treated with UV light to elevate their vitamin D levels.

However, there is a simple 'hack' if you don't have mushrooms grown outside or
treated with UV light. Place the mushroom in natural light (e.g. on a
windowsill) for about an hour before you're about to cook them. The natural
light will help raise the level of vitamin D in the mushrooms.

In case you're wondering about the veracity of this info, it's from a 2017
book published in the UK called _How to eat better_. The author is a botanist,
science writer and TV presenter called James Wong. (He has appeared on a
couple of BBC TV shows.)

Here is the relevant passage in full from the book:

> Doing one simple thing to your shop-bought fresh mushrooms can transform
> them from containing virtually zero vitamin D to one of nature’s richest
> food sources in as little as an hour or two, according to Penn State
> University. Popped on a sunny windowsill, the mushrooms (which commercially
> are grown in near total darkness) will react to the UV light, churning out
> loads more of the antioxidant vitamin to defend themselves from damage from
> solar radiation.

> The Penn State team found that a serving of white button mushrooms exposed
> to UV lamps for just 1 second could go from containing essentially zero
> vitamin D, to an astonishing 824 per cent of your daily recommended intake.
> When they tried the same thing with shiitake and oyster mushrooms, their
> vitamin D content skyrocketed way over a thousand times what you need to
> consume each day. In the world of food science, this really is as close as
> you can get to alchemy.

> With such tiny amounts of UV light needed to create such an enormous impact,
> it doesn’t have to be a blazingly sunny day for you to do this at home
> either – simply lay your mushrooms out on a windowsill for an hour or two
> anytime between 10am and 3pm and their levels should peak significantly. As
> the gill tissue (the brown underside of the mushroom caps) is more sensitive
> to light, placing them with the gills facing up will trigger the strongest
> spike. You can now even buy special vitamin D-rich mushrooms at a premium
> price in some posher supermarkets where this UV treatment has already been
> done for you. Just three of these mushrooms should give you your entire
> daily dose. But as tumbling your mushrooms out on the work surface for an
> hour or so will do the exact same job, you may want to save your cash.

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sornen
The light that is required to increase vitamin D production is UVB. The Penn
State researchers used a pulsed UVB source for their research. Lower frequency
light will not activate the conversion to vitamin D. Glass absorbs most UVB
light therefore laying out mushrooms on a window sill will not work.

