veg-oriented bio-hacking

One of the biggest hurdles to complete self-sufficiency is the fact that most people physically lack the space to grow all food they need. In this thread we discuss the potentiality of new generation genetic engineering technology such as CRISPR for the purpose of increasing the nutritional efficiency of plants. Imagine if a single tree could produce enough daily food to feed a person Imagine if microgreens could be cut and regrown indefinitely

You have to choose between growth speed and nutritional value. Modern crop hybridization optimized for yield and the faster growth came at the expense of lower nutritional values. Its just a relocation of resources akin to building a taller empty building carcass over a complete small house. If you want high nutrition food look at old crops. There are people who still preserve them. Ive got old strawberries & flour and you can taste the difference. Market price is 2x-3x higher and thats why peasants wont buy. That said you have to consider if you grow better nutrient dense crops you will automatically have higher costs keeping the soil alive since the plants are taking more out of the ground.

Generally, as >>83043 mentioned, the larger the yield the less nutritional value the plant has. If you are looking at sheer calories yes these genetically engineered or mass fertilized plants have a greater biomass but you may end up with nutritional deficiencies. >>83042 >Imagine if microgreens could be cut and regrown indefinitely They can, but you will have a very hard time reaching your required calorie intake on microgreens alone. My grandfather used to refer to microgreens as rabbit food, its just a fad I doubt many people actually eat them unironically. I have a neighbor who plants mushrooms during the early spring before planting tomatoes which causes his tomatoes to mutate. They end up with extremely large stalks standing at a couple feet and tomatoes coming out to half the size of a basketball. If this is the sort of thing you're looking for I can get his step by step guide, but since you mention CRISPR I'm assuming you're looking for something else entirely. Perhaps something more akin to how dairy farmers inject post-partum cows with estrogen to keep them producing milk for years at a time, but this doesn't really work in the same manner for plants. Plants receive their nutrients from the soil, to have the best yield the soil needs to be turned or at the very least re-fertilized which is both costly and damaging to a plant's self sufficiency. It will become reliant on the fertilizer and grow sick without it, I know this from first hand experience. That is not to say that your fruit tree will not feed your family for decades, if properly cared for it will likely feed your grandchildren aswell, but the growing seasons need to be respected, regardless of a gmo crop or not, or else you will strip the soil. >if a single tree could produce enough daily food to feed a person Impossible due to growing seasons and in certain climates. If you would like to get into prepping you also need to learn how to can and preserve your excesses during the summer if you wish to be self sufficient. In my opinion if you have less than 2 acres of available land on your property, self sufficiency is a pipe dream. If you have the available land then purchase a chicken coup. You can feed them all your vegetable scraps, stalks, etc and in return they will produce an egg every 3-4 days. Get 4 hens and you get 1 egg a day, get 8 and you have 2, etc. Eggs are far more nutritionally dense then any plant could be Vegetables should be a secondary food group to animal products if you want to live a healthy lifestyle.

Another thing to consider before I log off. If you ignore all the propaganda about climate change and animal cruelty, a single cow put to slaughter can feed you and your family for months. The only requirement is a bit of fenced off grazing land and a large supply of water. There is a reason why the ancients considered a man with livestock wealthy and powerful, they are the single best source of nutrients, satiety, and sheer caloric value.

while the value of animal foods shouldn't be understated, the optimum may wind up excluding them depending what exactly you're optimizing for. If you have an OK amount of OK land then raising like chickens is pretty easy. If we're actually optimizing for space/volume I'm pretty sure you're going to get more kcal/sqft from potatoes. Factory farms only work because of outside agriculture, can't actually pack chickens that dense in the real world. >>83047 cows are great but they're big and you're going to have to butcher (illegal in many areas to do yourself) and then preserve unless you have a pretty big family or very small cows. These are surmountable obstacles but have to be figured into optimization strategies, and the question posed by OP isn't how to be a rich man in the eyes of the bronze age but how to subsist on small space agriculture.

>>83043 >You have to choose between growth speed and nutritional value. I'd choose the former because what a person needs in bulk is energy, everything else is only needed in small quantities. The idea is to have 2 different kind of crops: A) an OGM "super-plant" (maybe potato) for calories B) a small number of normal plants/fungi/algae for other nutrients (ex.: 1 carrot for vit.A, 1 chili peppers for vit.C, chlorella for vit.s B12 and D, etc. etc.) >>83046 >They can, but you will have a very hard time reaching your required calorie intake on microgreens alone. I know, but microgreens could be used for micronutrients, not calories (they would belong to type B the above scheme) >Plants receive their nutrients from the soil, to have the best yield the soil needs to be turned or at the very least re-fertilized which is both costly and damaging to a plant's self sufficiency Of course, and my idea was to use thoroughly composted human excrements (humanure) for that

>everything else is only needed in small quantities. Pure calories is certainly valid if you survival focused but general public suffers malnutrition which lowers performance under our current diet. You can see this with various publications trying to "overdose" on vitamins and seeing positive results. In other words in my view i would want superfood to go high nutrient value because what we have is already too low.