Questions tagged [agriculture]
For questions related to the production of certain types of food: plants, nuts and everything else that is edible and cultivated.
144
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Where would the best cuts of meat be on a giant insect?
Let's say one had a giant insect the size of a sheep or a cow that some sapient species was raising as meat livestock. These animals would have to be butchered to be eaten and cannot simply be eaten ...
6
votes
3answers
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Inclinatory Cycles and Seasonbuilding
I was doing some tests in Universe Sandbox a while ago and I noticed a strange behavior shown by giant planets on highly inclined orbits. In the simulation I placed an Earth at 1 AU around the Sun, ...
7
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1answer
323 views
How much energy is needed to grow an acre of wheat entirely indoors?
I'm building an artificial growing environment for a heavily overpopulated world (because you can always build up, right?). When I started thinking about this, I thought it might be as simple as "...
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Basing a civilization on maize, beans, and squash as staple foods?
In my world, an apocalypse happened, a nuclear war.
Fast forward to the future. In places like Vegas, New Fresno, and Lost Angels (post-apoc LA) I was thinking about agriculture, and after doing a ...
4
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2answers
109 views
Best hydroponic crops to support an underground society?
So, in my world, after WW3, a contingent of American government officials, military officials, scientists, and engineers hid out in a specially constructed bunker, where they'd remain for nearly 200 ...
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3answers
208 views
Best crops to grow in the post-apocalyptic wasteland?
A nuclear-WWIII happens, lots of people and animals die.
Surviving humans are afterwards forced to either hide out in small survivalist compounds on the surface, or self-sufficient underground bunkers....
7
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5answers
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Radio controlled sheep
A worldwide pandemic has killed the world's dogs and their cousins the wolves.
In sheep farming countries, dogs have been and still are an invaluable aid to sheep farmers. Some breeds will herd the ...
asked Jul 12 at 21:28
chasly - reinstate Monica
36.8k12 gold badges114 silver badges231 bronze badges
2
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1answer
76 views
What plant crops can grow using only 75% light intensity? [closed]
Are there any plant crops that can grow reliably well at only 75% light illumination?
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6answers
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How could a world develop where it was necessary to mine all soil for agricultural use
I want to create a world were soil mining is a major industry. Imagine a vaguely Earth sized world where almost the entire surface of the planet is under, ocean, ice caps or is a hot or cold desert ...
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5answers
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How easily can a medieval granary explode?
The villainous gremlins are attempting to cause as much damage to the lands of the Empire as possible with as little effort as practical. They have numerous plans to this end. One such plan is to blow ...
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4answers
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How to teach the Mesoamericans seafaring?
I want to have a powerful Mesoamerican civilisation by the 1100s; one that decides to sail east and discover Europe. Earlier versions of the story had them contacted by Zheng He in the 1400s, but I ...
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Could agriculture still be developed by intelligent species that lack the concept of past and future?
Imagine somewhere in the universe there is an intelligent species that is as intelligent as our stone age fore-brothers and sisters but will never establish the concept of past and future events.
...
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4answers
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Could a regularly erupting volcano create fertile soil for a fantasy empire to thrive?
I have recently learnt about the flooding of the Nile and the irrigation around it, enabling plentiful crops by depositing nutrient rich silt during bronze age Egypt. I have also learnt about volcanic ...
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3answers
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What aquatic life would utterly deplete the soil of a specific nutrient?
In my story an area was formerly beneath an ocean or lake. Some form of life leeched the soil of a specific mineral or substance.
Technology level is that of ~1700 Spain.
Now that the water has ...
4
votes
2answers
193 views
Developed, highly advanced metropolis short on exotic foods
I have this setting, about an advanced city state in the middle of a sparsely inhabited wasteland/grassland type area.
This state has the 90's level tech on consumer level, and a wide range from 90's ...
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vote
2answers
160 views
How Large could this Optimized Preindustrial Population Get?
There are a lot of questions on this site about historical population levels and densities, and they have good answers about taking into how hard it was to survive in the past, and how inefficient ...
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votes
2answers
137 views
Feasibility of Giant Rodents as Food
In my setting there is a civilization that has a decisive advantage in a fundamentally agrarian world; it is consistently more efficient in its choices of crops and livestock.
Rodents reproduce ...
3
votes
1answer
104 views
Could Megapodes be a Superior Food Source than Chicken?
The Megapodes are a family of birds in the galliformes order. They live primarily in Australia and are notable in being extremely precocial and laying more eggs than any other bird. They build large ...
4
votes
1answer
117 views
Feasibility of a Super Crop
In my setting there is a civilization that has a decisive advantage in a fundamentally agrarian world; a crop of exceptional yield and nutritional value.
Would it be feasible for a plant to have ...
7
votes
2answers
171 views
Is popping corn still viable as seed stock? [closed]
In a very near-future (as in, assume no spectacular technological advances or changes to society) post-apocalyptic situation, would a group of survivors scavenging a store after all of the fresh ...
6
votes
2answers
227 views
Can agriculture and megafauna coexist?
Some say that one of the reason humans developed agriculture is because megafauna (specifically the Pleistocene megafauna) were hunted for food to extinction and humans were forced to develop ...
5
votes
3answers
127 views
Designing flora: placing herbs
So I have noticed that most herbs come from the Mediterranean as confirmed by this site and those that do not often come from either actual Mediterranean climates or somewhat arid ones.
So my ...
5
votes
3answers
319 views
Why would a spaceship rely on hydroponics instead of algae for food?
Currently, NASA is investigating the use of hydroponics, aeroponics, and other low soil techniques to grow regular plants for consumption and oxygen generation/CO2 removal on long voyages in space. ...
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3answers
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Can an animal produce milk all the time?
So as most of you probably know, cows don't produce milk all year round for no reason, they need to be pregnant and then you gotta do something with the calvesā¦
Now in my story that has an ecosystem ...
14
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3answers
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Medieval Crop Yields
I'm the DM for a D&D campaign, set in a sort of "realistic-fantasy" setting. There's monsters and magic and stuff, but there's not enough of that for the average medieval community to see much ...
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votes
2answers
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GMO Agriculture - Medieval farming with modern day seeds and advanced robots, how hard or how easy could it be to be rich using them?
Let's just say that you are stuck in a different world. You found a biological research and production starship wreck...
You decided to have GMO plants/seeds agriculture on your land that you bought ...
3
votes
0answers
506 views
How much agricultural land per person in medieval society? [closed]
In medieval society corresponding to approximately year 1200 in Holy Roman Empire, how much agricultural land would there be on average per person? What would be typical composition of the land? (...
7
votes
3answers
413 views
Fertilizing desert in magical medieval world
Suppose there exists a magic-based civilization. Their mining techniques are medieval and their understanding of organic chemistry and biology are on the Enlightenment era level. However, they are ...
7
votes
1answer
170 views
What's the minimal space/mass required to feed a human indefinitely with advanced technology?
I know there are similar questions on here already, yet this is different because I don't care about traditional farming in this question.
Environment
This meant for food production on ...
9
votes
4answers
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Crop production in mountains?
Would potato- or grain-like crops be able to flourish in northern alpine regions? There's a lot to be said about the Andeans, but the have the benefit of living near the equator that other ...
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votes
7answers
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How large would a mega structure have to be to host 1 billion people indefinitely?
Ruins of buildings, abandoned cities and suburbs dot the coasts of Earth's landmasses, inhabited by wild animals and the pieces of a once vibrant civilization. The oceans are relatively empty, the ...
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votes
1answer
208 views
What is the number of square kilometers of crops necessary to feed a population of 100,000? [duplicate]
Yo. I have a city. Pop. 100,000. They need to eat. Due to pantheism as their government-enforced religion, they do not eat meat. I need to know how much space in square kilometers would be needed in ...
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11answers
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Is a world with one country feeding everyone possible?
I imagine a world with the size of Europe and the Middle-East. In this world, with lands and seas that are comparable to Europe and the Middle East for its geography, farming is not developed. In fact,...
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8answers
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Keeping the dodos out of the field
About 100 people settled in a tropical area near a seashore five years ago. They've been feeding themselves by hunting and fishing, but now they're also trying to grow crops, including hemp and corn. ...
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17answers
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What food production methods would allow a metropolis like New York to become self sufficient
In my overcrowded future setting the Hegemony (government of the Earth) wants to make the metropolises of the world self sufficient when it comes to food production. What farming/food production ...
asked May 9 '19 at 15:21
Celestial Dragon Emperor
10.3k4 gold badges37 silver badges79 bronze badges
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votes
4answers
239 views
Could a planet evolve to have jungles, woodlands, savannas and meadows - but no animal bigger than an insect?
I want to have a group of space colonists get stranded on a planet where the only way they can get enough nourishment is to gather or cultivate edible plants.
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6answers
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What farming practices would allow the Earth to support a population as high as 200 billion
Welcome to the year 2170, the predictions of our grandparents were so wrong: The human population didn't cap at 20 billion, it went far past that. The global population is now roughly 200 billion.
...
asked May 2 '19 at 14:13
Celestial Dragon Emperor
10.3k4 gold badges37 silver badges79 bronze badges
4
votes
2answers
145 views
Growing seaweeds on lakes and seas in tundra-like biome
Ok so I was thinking about a Viking-like civilization living in a tundra biome. So, other than raiding villages southwards or hunting wild beasts in the forest, could they cultivate seaweed for ...
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4answers
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What sort of animals would a civilization of small feline omnivore humanoids domesticate
I'm playing around with the idea of making a world heavily based on one of my favorite childhood book series. (basically a fanmade rewrite of sorts). The series is called Warriors, and is about ...
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3answers
798 views
Gaining more land by draining wetlands
Iām building a country located in todayās Argentina. It is as developed as Canada or Australia, and has several times bigger population than todayās Argentina.
Which brings us to the problem:
...
11
votes
3answers
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The effect of fishing on total land area needed to feed an island settlement
I am trying to create an island with a large settlement on it, the people of this settlement need to be able to sustain themselves and according to Medieval demographics made easy (MDME)
A square ...
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vote
3answers
251 views
Can a civilization arise around insect cultivation
Unnecessary Setup
In my story, a race of gods arrive in our solar system from the far flung colonies of a Type III civilization. When they arrive at Earth and see the rise of hominids, they split ...
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11answers
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At great altitude, what conditions are needed to support a human community?
In my part of this (Earth-like) world, there is a stable community of completely isolated pre-industrial humans, numbering perhaps 1,800.
They live at an altitude of (at least) 25,000 feet (7620 ...
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3answers
140 views
Interplanetary Agriculture
What would be a good way to set up farms and trade among planets to ensure that the people of each planet are well fed?
11
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3answers
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Can a gorse plant be used as a source of food?
I have a fantasy kingdom set up where the landscape is mostly mountainous with rock and pine forests, like the picture below. As such, it is quite difficult to have agriculture. One plant which can ...
6
votes
2answers
239 views
How would climate be affected on a plateau 10 km above sea level?
I am curious as to what physical geographic features would be present on a plateau 10km above sea level. The Tibetan plateau is only 4km above sea level, so would more than doubling the height ...
7
votes
3answers
222 views
Technology to produce food without land, what will happen with the land next?
Let's say we have the technology to produce all of the human food in factories without the need for land (i.e. Solarfood, Memphis Meats). Right now, there is about 50% of all habitable land use for ...
10
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4answers
642 views
Best Foods/Plants to Grow in Generational Spaceship?
Hopefully this isn't a duplicate; I wasn't able to find another question which addressed this, at any rate.
Let's say I have a generational spaceship going off to another solar system to establish a ...
9
votes
6answers
651 views
How could an agricultural revolution develop in medieval societies inhabiting a tropical environment work?
I'm trying to work on a chapter in my lore but I'm stumped on how agricultural developments could work in tropical settings, and real world examples so far mostly include temperate places, I.e. ...
4
votes
1answer
123 views
How much land to keep a sauropod in captivity?
How large of an area in acres would a large sauropod (Apatosaurus) need to maintain itself while also not eating all of the vegetation within the area.
So basically how large of a forested area would ...
