Low Light requiring food plants

[Ganoderma]

What are some ideal food plants that fir teh following requirements.

*Low Light Levels**
fast growth/short harvest times
good size able harvests

sweet potato here is grown as a secondary crop under things like betel trees and coconut here, so they are shaded, but still have adequate light. what are some truly shade loving vegetables, fruit, herbs etc that still grow fast? i keep trying to think of something, but everything i seem to think of prefers good light levels.

they cant be trees because lighting will be artificial and will not be great at penetrating leaf canopies....so smaller, at least shorter, plants are ideal. Is lettuce ok in less light?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Ganoderma

What are some ideal food plants that fit the following requirements.

*Low Light Levels**
fast growth/short harvest times
good size able harvest. ...

i think that's a contradiction of terms for any green plant.

[Getting A Life]

There are plants that don't like full sun, these will be close to what you seek. Lettuce can handle the light to an extent but bolt when it gets too hot.

Herbs like oregano and thyme can sit in the shade and grow, but not fast. Watercress does ok in the shade. Parsley will grow in shade again not well, but well enough to get a feed.

Here's a bit of interesting science for you. Some trees share nutrition between them using mycorrhizal fungal bridges. A smaller tree in the shade will be given carbs by the larger tree hogging the light.

Now, how do you teach veggies to share like that?

[freeztar]

Yeah, it's tough to think of good candidates.

Coffee is the only one that is coming to mind right now...

[Ganoderma]

yes coffee is a great one, but not really a food. ideally i would want a food crop. although they would work good fr experimenting.

i think that's a contradiction of terms for any green plant.

i want low levels, not no level the idea is indoor cultivation without windows and little electrical input. so there will be light, jsut not a lot and nothing that is able to penetrate through a few layers of leaves well...so tall plants would likely fail miserably. this is not limited to green plants, plants with other pigment spikes are ok as well, but other pigments jsut need other wavelengths so its not really so much different i suppose. it's not going to be bright in any wavelength, although blue and red will be more.

Parsley is a good one, very nutritious. i wonder what kind of light levels it prefers. be a good one to play with as its all good and a low grower. What about purple yam? it has purple leaves, that turn green in lower light, wonder how well they would do, anyone grown them in shade before?

[Turtle]

Originally Posted by Ganoderma

i want low levels, not no level the idea is indoor cultivation without windows and little electrical input. so there will be light, just not a lot and nothing that is able to penetrate through a few layers of leaves well...so tall plants would likely fail miserably. ...

well it's all a measure of energy density. one reason plants do poorly in low light is that they spend energy elongating the stems to try & reach the light. they "know" what is enough & what is not enough light.

for your underground situation i'd go with a green house above ground, if not directly over the bunker. i'd make it a central part of the habitat so not only would plants grow there but heating/cooling/cleaning of air, collecting of water, holding of solar cells, light tubes, mechanical equipment yada yada yada in support of the cave. . . . .

[Ganoderma]

thats a wise decision. we are building a greenhouse now, but it is in a flodo area, so probabyl tunnel building would be pointless lol.

i am not really thinking just tunnel farming, but moreso thinking multicropping (if thats a word). for example a squash/been/pea etc type farm typically utilizes stakes and they form a canopy or tent with the plants, leaving underneath relatively bare and unused. now there will be light getting through, but i suppose also mostly in the more useless spectrum (green). so was thinking of perhaps a purple plant crop to grow on the ground under such a crop as above.

that was just an example, i will likely be planting under trees not beans. so teh corn+bean method wouldn't work so hot. beans and trees though might be interesting, but hard to control their height.

[Michaelangelica]

This is a question that has taxed my horticultural knowledge of late too.
Some possibilities:-
Water cress, brooklime, cress, salad herbs and plants, sprouts.