
Vegetables get freakish in the land of the midnight sun (2014) - EndXA
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/20/341884706/why-vegetables-get-freakish-in-the-land-of-the-midnight-sun
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rypskar
When did Alaska become the land of the midnight sun?

I think it must be something more to it than only the sun. I have lived north
of the arctic circle in the land of the midnight sun (Norway) most of my life,
potatoes and carrots grown here are not bigger than what is grown in the south
where the growing season is much longer.

~~~
rmcpherson
According to Wikipedia it’s a nickname for Alaska but also can refer to any
region above the Arctic circle.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_the_Midnight_Sun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_of_the_Midnight_Sun)

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Kaibeezy
The Rise and Fall of Scottish Tomatoes -
[https://food.list.co.uk/article/17305-the-rise-and-fall-
of-s...](https://food.list.co.uk/article/17305-the-rise-and-fall-of-scottish-
tomatoes/)

 _‘At the farmers’ markets, people are always delighted to get Scottish-grown
stuff. But in the supermarkets, people always buy with an eye on the price.
The fact is, heating those greenhouses is always going to put us at a cost
disadvantage._

 _‘Now if something was to happen to road transport, more attention to food
miles perhaps, it could change things. Or if southern Europe was to have more
water shortages … But that’s looking decades ahead. If there’s ever going to
be a Scottish tomato revival, I doubt I’ll be here to see it.’_

2009 article, likely he is here to see it.

~~~
fulafel
Growing veggies in heated greenhouses is madness in the current climate
crisis, transporting them even long distances is vastly more energy efficient
because freight is quite efficient per kg.

~~~
kaybe
Except in Iceland, they do a decent job with their geothermally heated
greenhouses. They're very proud of the tomatoes.

~~~
_ph_
Which brings up the thought - what about the efficiency of solar powered
greenhouses? As solar cells are more efficient at catching the sunlight than
plants - might boost the overall efficiency of growing things without negative
environment impact.

~~~
pjc50
A normal greenhouse _is_ passive solar powered.

~~~
hvidgaard
Modern solar panels and high efficiency GHP, are getting upto a point where
it's comparable to the heat you get from direct sunlight. So I don't think
it's far off that we see green houses heated purely by solar energy, with the
added benefit of being energy sink during low demand (night) and energy source
during demand (day).

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burnte
In addition to long daylight periods during the growing season, you're also
using soil that hasn't been farmed continuously for hundreds of years like in
the mainland US, or even thousands of years like pretty much everywhere else
on earth.

~~~
wil421
You don’t need native soil. Compost, manure, and off season ground cover crops
that are mulched into native soil do just fine. Where I live in the South
there’s lots of red clay but if you provide amendments you will do fine. Your
county dump will probably provide compost for free. California provides food
for a massive portion of the county but without us providing water it would be
too arid for most corps.

~~~
burnte
I didn't say anything about "native" soil, just that it's land that hasn't
been used agriculturally. Yeah, we can put compost, manure, nitrogen, etc in
the soil, but you can't artificially recreate the microbiome and micro-
nutrient mixture that nature creates over eons.

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caseyscottmckay
NPR seems to use Reddit post/commemts for lots of it's stories. Yesterday some
redditor posted about Alaska's large (and sweet) vegetables and not 10 hours
later NPR published an article on the topic. I notice NPR using reddit for
story leads at least a few times a week.

~~~
shalmanese
You're reversing cause and effect. Someone saw the reddit story and decided to
post this NPR story here from 2014.

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jedberg
> The extra sunlight also makes the produce sweeter. "People often try our
> carrots here, and they think we've put sugar on them," Brown says.

That's interesting. The few people I know that live in Alaska or who have
purchased local produce have said the opposite. That the strawberries were
very large and very bland.

I assume some things get sweeter and some are more bland depending on if they
burn their own sugar to grow?

~~~
sp332
Larger strawberry varieties do tend to be bland in my experience. Also carrots
are root storage while strawberries are more temporary, so maybe they get
prioritzed differently in plants that adapt to really long dark stretches.

~~~
Mirioron
Tomato fruit sugar content apparently inversely correlates with the sugar
content of the fruit.[0] That is, larger tomatoes tend to have less sugar in
them as a percentage of the whole. I'm not sure if this applies to
strawberries, but it's worth considering/looking into.

[0]
[https://doi.org/10.21273/JASHS.129.6.0839](https://doi.org/10.21273/JASHS.129.6.0839)

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econcon
In my country the potatoes which grow on hills taste wayyy better than the
ones produced on flatland.

~~~
pjc50
How is that? Is it the "terroir" or the weather or the different variety?

~~~
cmrdporcupine
My guess would be drainage. Plants don't like usually like wet feet. Potatoes
are more tolerant of this than others but that doesn't make it ideal.

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FlyMoreRockets
In the competitive giant pumpkin world, all the largest entries come from
northern regions, due to the increase number daylight hours in the summer.

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mrfusion
Couldn’t indoor farming also accomplish this?

~~~
gwbas1c
Growing under artificial lighting is extremely challenging. A lot of study
goes into selecting the right kind of lights with a spectrum that closely
matches natural light. (An ordinary light bulb won't cut it.)

Once the proper lights are found, energy consumption and cooling are so
significant that it's not really economical to grow food indoors.

If you want to understand this more, I suggest looking up how to grow pot
indoors. (It's really interesting to read, even if you never plan on doing
it.) A significant amount of pot is grown indoors because it's easier to keep
hidden than growing outdoors. (And, the stores that cater to indoor vegetable
gardens really just cater to people growing pot in their closet or basement.)

(BTW, people growing lots of pot indoors are easy to find due to electricity
consumption and strange heat signatures from their homes. Some people get
caught after large blizzards because the snow on their roof melts unusually
fast.)

~~~
mattkrause
No idea about pot specifically, but it's not totally impossible for
vegetables.

Canada is a net exporter of tomatoes, many of which are grown in massive
greenhouses in the middle of nowhere (e.g.,
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/16/473526920/ho...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/06/16/473526920/how-
canada-became-a-greenhouse-superpower)) As the article says, it costs a bit
more to grow, but the yield and quality make up for it.

~~~
chris1993
In Australia a major tomato producer built their new greenhouse facility in
the high-altitude (1km) New England region because it's cheaper to heat the
greenhouses in the cold winter months than to cool them in the hot summer
months in low-altitude high-temperature areas. It might be with global warming
the economics of Canadian tomatoes get even better.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
The regions of Canada where we grow tomatoes are not particularly cold. The
greenhouse heartland here is in the southernmost part of Canada near Lake Erie
and sits at the same lattitude (42) as northern California / southern Oregon,
or central Italy.

Yes, it's cold in the winter because it's a continental climate, but the
summers tend to be very hot and humid (mid 30C not uncommon and perceptually
higher due to the high humidity.) Obviously not in Australia's heat ranges,
but warmer than you'd find in most of Europe.

Many of these greenhouses are switching to growing cannabis now, with
legalization.

