A Hydroponics-based Agriculture System

[voidbeetles]

Hi!

One of my current writing projects is set in a civilization that has, for thousands of years, lived in a sort of large scifi underground bunker. They have easy access to water, very little access to soil (they're able to compost biomass, add minerals, etc, but that will only get you so far), and no access to sunlight (grow lights will have to suffice) - for these reasons, I imagine that their agriculture system is mostly hydroponics-based. Though I've done a little research on hydroponics, I'm having difficulty extrapolating this information to my worldbuilding, mostly because a lot of the info I've found relates to singular plants without giving a good sense of what fares better/worse compared to others. And also just because I have a hard time wrapping my head around plant cultivation in general, I think. I was wondering if anyone here had any insights! (Or suggestions of topics/resources to look into more!)

The big questions I'm thinking most about are:

• Compared to, say, the modern Western world, would certain foods/food groups be underrepresented or over-represented in this fictional world's cuisine? (for example, I imagine that rice might be the main staple, as flooding rice fields is pretty important to cultivating it... and that potatoes might not be such a good choice, as their "main thing" is growing beneath the soil?)
• What effect would this have on the plant fibers that are most commonly used for making clothes (and other fiber technology like rope)? That is: how would cotton, linen, hemp, etc fare? Would a certain one of these plants be more common? More expensive? Quicker/easier to grow/harvest on large scales? (This question is especially relevant because my protagonist has an interest in textiles.)

Comments

[voidbeetles]

Fungus, absolutely! (Rhubarb, perhaps, too?) And thank you for the recommendation!

[fred_mouse]

Rhubarb, in my experience, Really Likes Sun. Even in my local, which has hot dry summers, it prefers near full sun.

Good luck with finding the book! I know it is out of print, but it turns up second hand some of the time. If you can't find it, I'll drag out my copy, and see if I can find the relevant bits to transcribe for you.

[voidbeetles]

Oh, thank you for the offer! I’ll go looking for the book tomorrow; I have a lot of friends in LIS who might be able to help.

Re. rhubarb, I was thinking of the practice of “forcing” rhubarb, where you force it to grow in the dark! But it turns out that you need it to grow normally a bit before you do this. Which makes more sense…

[azurelunatic]

It does grow in Alaska, with a lower angle on the sun and a lower ambient temperature, but very long daylight in the summer. I've also heard about forcing rhubarb in darkness, though...

[fred_mouse]

Might be daylight hours that it needs - it gets unhappy here in winter, but doesn't die down like I know it does other places (which is also a snow thing, I presume), so it is a year round perennial rather than a grows back every year perennial.