3 ms·
> Judging vertical farming based on the performance of wheat is not valid. When I saw the test crop was wheat, I scrolled to see if there were any other crops,
by wainstead 6y ago
> Judging vertical farming based on the performance of wheat is not valid. When I saw the test crop was wheat, I scrolled to see if there were any other crops, saw that there weren't, and abandoned the article because wheat has among the worst yields per area (in terms of kg of edible product per sq meters).
I want to stress this point. Crops like wheat, rice, and corn are not suitable for vertical farming. No vertical farms today are growing these.
And claiming “vertical farming does not save land” based on a single 1msq art installation makes a tenuous argument at best.
And even worse, from the article:
> When wheat is planted in the ground next to each other, instead of above, the sun provides free energy and the clouds free water.
No, no, no, no. Water from precipitation is a fraction of the water needed in areas like the American central plains where the Ogallala Aquifer has been pumped out for decades. Irrigation is a must for growing staple crops almost anywhere. And water is increasingly in short supply.
- Armisael16 6y agoWhy not corn? My understanding is that it’s one of the most efficient crops in calories/acre terms (which is presumably what you actually care about, not kg/acre).
- yazaddaruvala 6y agoMy guess is that counterintuitively but unsurprisingly, you actually want to use crops that were previously inefficient to grow. Low yields per acre crops are more suitable to indoor vertical farming because of the benefit climate control, and lack of pests provides.
- Armisael16 6y agoI don’t understand why those would preferentially help low yield crops more than high yield crops. That would be very surprising to me.
- yazaddaruvala 6y agoMy thoughts: If a crop is easy to grow, that means it’s able to handle: 1. Variable sunlight conditions; 2. Variable water conditions; 3. Handle bugs, viruses; and 4. Variable climate conditions. Low yield crops are problematic because they cannot handle variability. Using an indoor facility is equally expensive if you program the conditions to be variable or to be relatively strict. Additionally, a low yield crop is typically more expensive than a high yield crop. As such, you would rather program the indoor facility’s conditions to be relatively strict and grow a typically low yield crop, get significantly better yield and compete on price.
- Armisael16 6y ago> Low yield crops are problematic because they cannot handle variability. Is this generally the cause for their lower yields? I would assume they just aren’t genetically programmed to grow as much (useful stuff, at least).
- yazaddaruvala 6y agoOh, yeah, I'm sure that is also a problem. I don't think vertical farming can really help enough with that problem. Vertical farming can definitely help problems like: https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/low-yields-undersized-fruits-vegetables https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/low-yields-undersized-... And most specifically, for crops that are just plain picky: https://www.rliland.com/difficult-crops-grow/ https://www.rliland.com/difficult-crops-grow/
- bpodgursky 6y ago> Water from precipitation is a fraction of the water needed in areas like the American central plains where the Ogallala Aquifer has been pumped out for decades This isn't true. Much (at least a couple of years ago, most) corn in the midwest is not irrigated. Rainfall is common enough over the summer that it almost always works out OK, and if it doesn't, you write it off to crop insurance. Edit: double checked, still confident. Check out the page 4 map of the midwest and % of irrigated corn fields https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2848&context=usdaarsfacpub https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2...
- wainstead 6y agoIndeed, I stand corrected! While the Ogallala is still in trouble from over pumping, you’ve shown corn is mostly rain fed.