Edible palms for a large tropical greenhouse

[richnorm]

On 2/18/2018, 1:55:59, KarenRei said:

@caixeta - Thank you for the info!

Just trying to get a sense of volume, aka whether we would be talking "10 drops per child who visits" when in season, "one drop per 1000 children", or whatnot when in season, and how long the season lasts 

In general we'll be growing plants in the lowest light environments in which they can still produce a "somewhat decent" yield - because so many plants will only produce in full sun, and many will outright die in the shade; plants that can take shade and still yield something useful are much less common.  We can always have a greater number of plants to make up for lower shade-yields per plant, where necessary. There's lots of "understory" space available (so long as we don't obstruct walking paths / commercial space), but sun space is limited obviously the outer perimieter / tallest canopy species, particularly the south side (but this being Iceland, the sun shines even from the north in the summer    ).  The plant layout is going to be an interesting balancing act. 

Yes, there will (for very obvious reasons!) be supplemental lighting in the winter, and yes, power in Iceland is over 99% renewable  . It's rare that the sun shows itself at all near the solstice (it peaks at under 2° over the horizon, so pretty much anything can block it).You mainly just get 5-6 hours of "dim", because the sun takes a very low angle just behind the horizon.  We can choose where we want more supplemental light relative to other locations.  And if some plant turns out to be particularly good, we can up its lighting (not total winter light quantity, since that's fixture-limited, but we can extend supplemental lighting further into fall and spring, or even summer)

Well you might get 6 or more inflorescences per year with hundreds of flowers  on each.   Flowering is periodic.  Seems to flower for a period of weeks then rest whilst seed forms before another wave of flowering. But I really haven't studied it that closely and goodness knows what would happen in a glass house close to the arctic circle!  You will be breaking new ground.  

You could of course buy many palm products for your visitors to try like canned palm hearts, bottles of syrup, palm honey (from Jubaea seeds) and so on.

As an aside, weaving palm leaves is a good activity for kids too....

[KarenRei]

19 minutes ago, richnorm said:

Well you might get 6 or more inflorescences per year with hundreds of flowers  on each.   Flowering is periodic.  Seems to flower for a period of weeks then rest whilst seed forms before another wave of flowering.

And each flower might be seen as one "sample" then?  Okay, thanks 

19 minutes ago, richnorm said:

 But I really haven't studied it that closely and goodness knows what would happen in a glass house close to the arctic circle!  You will be breaking new ground.  

You could of course buy many palm products for your visitors to try like canned palm hearts, bottles of syrup, palm honey (from Jubaea seeds) and so on.

As an aside, weaving palm leaves is a good activity for kids too....

[Jamesasb]

no i didnt try butia seeds.maybe they taste nice 

[KarenRei]

20 minutes ago, richnorm said:

Well you might get 6 or more inflorescences per year with hundreds of flowers  on each.   Flowering is periodic.  Seems to flower for a period of weeks then rest whilst seed forms before another wave of flowering.

And each flower might be seen as one "sample" then?  Okay, thanks 

20 minutes ago, richnorm said:

 But I really haven't studied it that closely and goodness knows what would happen in a glass house close to the arctic circle!  You will be breaking new ground.  

I know! It's a constant problem, unfortunately.    But an estimate of productivity is required nonetheless, even though there's going to be huge error bars on it.

22 minutes ago, richnorm said:

You could of course buy many palm products for your visitors to try like canned palm hearts, bottles of syrup, palm honey (from Jubaea seeds) and so on.

Indeed, that is very much the plan.  There's no way that we can meet all demand on-site; we can produce samples fresh off the tree, and then if people like what they tasted, the same or similar products will be available in the market.  Plus, people will be able to sign up for email alerts, so if someone decides that he likes, say, jackfruit, whenever we get new jackfruit products in stock, we'd let him know.  And if any product shows strong consistent demand, we can contract out with farmers in the countryside with glasshouses to cultivate it in-country, or where that's not practical, with farmers overseas. 

It's really win-win-win for everyone - us, producers, and consumers. The only people who lose out are companies that market crazy-overpriced nutritional supplements (which are very popular here).  Because who would buy some pill or powder when they can get the real thing?  :)