Science!! Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Northerner_sl said:

What the hell do you have against photosynthesis? It's one of the cooler processes that nature ever came up with.

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Photosynthesis is great.

Until you have to replace the sun because this conversation is about indoor vegetation.

Is this what you want in your house?!?!





ok the last one is really cool.


I know I'm talking science fiction nonsense here. I'm postulating that a theoretical future where we have so much control over vegetation that we can have inexpensive, easy to maintain and light-independent plants would result in a lot of indoor vegetation. I'm not talking about a philodendron sitting on your desk, asking to be watered, moved into the light etc. I'm talking a hallway with fresh raspberry vines supplying fresh berries without requiring a full time gardener to babysit it like the above edmonton indoor gardens.

I'm talking

Abefroman_sl said:

I want plants that convert heat and co2 into food while extracting water out of the atmosphere. An air conditioner and air purifier that you can eat!

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Now we are talking.

Related vid:

Lenas_sl said:

I think it sounds more feasible to have lighting accurately simulate sunlight than to create plants that don't need sunlight.

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Accurately simulating sunlight is for the birds. Plants don't even need the yellow spectrum or something.

Abefroman_sl said:

There are already plenty of houseplants that need nothing more then indirect sunlight. Now if we could adapt that to any other kind of crop or herb that would be a huge benefit. Or adapt how fungi grow to crops and you could grow crops underground with nothing more then leftover waste and fecal matter.

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I'm just a layman and not a botanist so I'm bullshitting here. I don't know exactly how photosynthesis works, but from what I know it's a biochemical reaction that converts:
CO2 + Water + Energy -> Sugar + Oxygen

Those plants that don't need a lot of energy? They aren't producing a lot of sugar. Maybe they'd be good for decorative plants because they'd also not need a lot of trimming.

I am assuming that using electricity to power LEDs to give energy to that photosynthetic reaction to produce sugar is terribly inefficient. So using leds to power plants via emission of light is expensive. If we could jump into science fiction and use alternating current to give energy to plant material to create that sugar, well, we're talking about a massive gain and much more control. It's all pure imagination and again, I'm bullshitting.


I don't know what the cost is off lettuce grown in these aeroponic structures, but the gains from being able to grow farms right where the people are with minimal water cost sounds amazing. I have to imagine the first place it will make sense is places like Israel, Dubai etc where cheap solar energy + lack of water + high cost of transport means this is more useful than places like SanFran.

What would be very cool is if residential skyscrapers had a built in aeroponic area. Or better yet, people's living space had them and could quickly and easily grow large amounts of green food year round.





You guys hear me get all debbie downer on autonomous vehicles because I actually know how far off the futurist's dreams are, but since I know nothing about botany I can dream about it!

They turned our family wheat farm into a train depot. Used to visit there as a kid. Went back last year and saw the BNSF depot. Pretty jarring.