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by elasticventures 1570 days ago
cannabis can grow very fast in the right conditions. mushrooms can grow very fast in the right conditions.

so ... I suppose if you live in a place .. like Merica 70F/21c (or are you Liberian?) .. anyway, that 70F is 'golden temperature band' conducive to growing most anything. YES both species could co-exist without a lot of complication, neither will thrive, but neither will probably die. 70F - I think that's like Vista, CA. has the ideal 'most stable' temperature in the US. .. but real-estate is super expensive, so to have that you must live in a nice place, with good weather and blabla, "it's not farm-land", .. also if you need something you probably just order it from Amazon and it shows up a day later.

RE: Cannabis 'optimal yield' .. i.e. we both get the 'same' genetics, from the same bank, which of us could grow a better plant? The environmental conditions + light + soil motility (or hydro) all contribute to phenotype expression, not just life cycle, .. over the life, the air-flow rate for transpiration, light fluence, all those must be in balance -- MOST cannabis per it's name 'weed' is quite hardy, but you'll get different phenotype expression, if you have poor ventilation, o2 build-up (low co2), that can shock/stress the plant, it won't be as dense (i.e. if you are sea level vs. growing on a mountain) .. if you start changing it's environment you'll see the plant changes a lot, also using hormones, other approaches there are a lot of ways to boost yield (also, NEVER for example put Flower/Rose grow accelerate on your cannabis, it becomes cancer causing toxic when smoked! and this is why 'dark market' cannabis is so dangerous). Some cannabis growers buy industrial Co2 tanks and pipe that into their greenhouses, especially in places where they are limited to how many plants they can legally grow in a space, -- so it's known to use co2 helps to turn over bigger crops faster (the co2 comes from petroleum, and it makes me sick to think they're just dumping it into the atmosphere). I've seen growers using co2 do as many as ~6 full cycles per year (sort of like raising chickens indoors using lights).. so I wanted an organic source of Co2 from either brewing yeast and/or mushrooms! (NOTE: this is NOT cost competitive, petroleum based co2 is basically free)

Because .. MOST growers, most farmers in general are pretty lazy, and "don't mess with it" since plants have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to exist on earth in the present climate. Most* 'farmers' aren't scientists, they are inclined to let nature be nature and give up control of existential co-factors, beyond water, fertilizer, greenhouse structure. This is really easy, probably 'best' if you live in ideal climate zone, nature takes care of most of this for you -- I grew up in San Diego, CA. aside from water, the SoCal weather is extremely conducive to growing .. always 70F. US Farmers are often religious, and in this case, the religion is necessary because all they can do is pray for good weather, and (so I've been told) that seems to be working so far!

Alas, I do not live in Merica anymore, .. I'm an Expat! I (intentionally) live someplace else, and having left the US my prayers are no longer answered. I left the US because I don't want to live in an anocracy (failed democracy), and at this point, perhaps in my lifetime the US will collapse into civil war, and the subsequent religious state that would emerge, it's not someplace I want to live. I mostly blame Regan, but I do miss the weather in San Diego. Alas, I digress. My point is: praying for crops only seems to work in America, mostly where there is already good weather & therefore better churches.

Now, something most American's don't realize is that MOST of the people on the planet Earth, they live in a place where the weather is already unpleasant (I assume, because god hates non-Americas), and also mostly attributed to America, the non-American weather is only going to get worse (more extreme). Our ecosystem of plants & fungi - stuff that used to grow -- the truth is it already doesn't grow as well as it did for our grand-parents, and in the future, well who knows, .. indoor growing 'sheltered farming', controlling temperature, when it's all ~70F US (i.e. Los Angeles), farming there isn't hard, maybe the soil is bad,whaha, add some lime to break up your clay, then keep dumping yer high nitrogen fertilizer till it gets into your lakes & rivers .. or at least until we hit peak phosphorous and you can't buy/afford fertilizer .. that's maybe ~10-20 years but alas, I digress. American's don't realize how much easier agriculture is IN AMERICA (it's really got excellent climate, overall for it's size) .. again, this is attributed mostly to prayer & good weather from all the farmers praying.

But for me -- I presently live in a place that is known for it's extreme temperature & humidity, not uncommon to have a 10(c) flux in an hour, etc. We aren't religious here, or at least not extremely religious like America, and everybody gets to vote (or they pay a fine), and all the votes get counted, and everybody is really respectful to each-other despite being secular.

HOWEVER neither species we've discussed is presently legal where I am .. so as an foreigner, the punishments for being caught would be extremely unpleasant, bordering on "life destroying" (and ultimately I would be sent BACK to America). So everything must be stealth, covert, blabla, and it's even illegal to touch electrical wire unless I'm a licensed electrician out of over-zealous concern for fire. .. hint: as an immigrant, I'm not licensed to do anything. FML.

With agriculture being a biological process, it's innately a markov chain, each action, any discrete failure, impacts the rest of the chain, the organism gets stressed, it doesn't grow as well, maybe it fruits early, or not at all.

The /optimal/ growing conditions for cannabis & fungi are known to be different. Once the HVAC systems are interconnected between two systems, the number of variables which can grow horribly wrong, and where balancing one impacts the other. Add more factors, such as experimenting with different cultivation cycles & processes, etc. the combined system(s) doesn't lend itself to micro-scale 'experimentation', .. interconnecting the two systems in a way they can co-exist, in theory, simple, in practice, not as simple. In practice you need a lot of sensors, automation, climate buffer zones, and/or patience & dealing with disappointment.

fwiw - I am trying to figure out how to micro-scale & automate the control systems. So if anybody says "yeah, this is easy" please show me how. I am designing a system I would like to take to Mars colony (not interested in the moon) and I basically don't see how NASA or SpaceX can build a sustainable mars colony without using fungi/Eukaryotes.

Finally -- for those who made it to the bottom of this post. Fwiw mushrooms, i.e. oyster, reshi, can supposedly grow EXTREMELY FAST, like ~20x faster than 'normal' using high voltage stimulus, or potentially similar effects using cold-plasma) .. papers & studies, also look up 'fairy rings' where mushrooms grow in a circle after a lightning strike -- (this has been 'anecdotally' known for thousands of years).

2 comments

>when it's all ~70F US (i.e. Los Angeles), farming there isn't hard, maybe the soil is bad,whaha...

You don't mention the huge, state-managed infrastructure needed to bring water to those places(which seem to be close to exhausting their supply.) I don't think it's climate that's made American agriculture so productive.

Uhm I am replying to this post, but give me some time. I hope to make it worth your wait.
no worries, was having fun with the response.
What makes you an expat and not an immigrant to your host country?
English is a funny language, the words chosen mean different things in each country's way of speaking. I'll try to describe based on my own experience:

A tourist is a person who shows up, stays at a hotel, frequently via the air-port or cruise ship. They don't really embrace the local culture aside from sight-seeing tourist type activities.

A Digital Nomad (DN) is almost like a tourist who lives in a country on a tourist visa - they don't open bank accounts, get national identity cards etc. They might rent an AirBNB and "live" in a country for a month or three at a time. It's not a vacation, it's a work/life 'hack', so they're in a foreign country but working (usually) in their host country. They are working in their host country living in another country.

Expat (Expatriate) is a "tax status", it refers to the money transfer .. somebody who is working abroad BUT is .. in their life-planning horizon expecting to return to their home, - they are like an indefinite tourist, they live & work in a host country, so not on vacation (has a job, place to live, permission to stay & work) .. but it's not actually indefinite. The host country doesn't expect them to stay forever and might even require them to leave periodically. An expat is I think always working or earning income in the host country, but ultimately sending the money back home country.

An immigrant is somebody who has left a place, and is going to stay at the new country indefinitely, they do not make any plans to return home (except to visit family), and perhaps they might want to bring their family to the new country. Their work status is irrelevant, they may not even have permission to work. An immigrant should have long term permission to stay in a country or they are considered a refugee, and may be expected leave, which is why being a refugee sucks so much. (I used to say I was an intellectual refugee from the US, but now that I understand how fucked life is for actual refugees I don't make that joke anymore)

Immigrants by my definition, the new place is their home, refugees are 'forced immigrants' from circumstances. Immigrants want to stay embrace the culture, social behaviors, blabla whereas an Expat is probably going to maintain more social identity & long term concern over how things are going "back home", also maintaining some identity or property, whereas an immigrant frequently would (at least in my mind) sell property, move assets to the new country/currency. Refugees on the other hand, they are staying in a country because it's unsafe to return.

I started as a DN, and now on the expat => immigrant spectrum.