The March 18, 1962 Chicago Tribune ran this Closer Than We Think strip about hydrofungal farming. The text of the strip appears below.
An Ohio State University professor is researching a novel way to keep the world's supply of food proteins in step with the explosive growth of the population.
Dr. William D. Gray believes an answer might be found by cultivating certain fast-growing fungi rich in proteins. These fungi must be grown in large quantities of water, either salt of fresh, aerated by bubble streams.
One way would be to mature the "crop" in the ocean. Plant flasks would be fastened to slowly rocking underwater tables supplied with air from hoses to the surface. These mechanized "hydrofungal" centers might prove just as effective for protein cultivation as the sea itself is for the fish to eat.
See also:
Closer Than We Think! (1958-1963)
Ocean Life by Klaus Bürgle (1960s)
Sealab 1994 (1973)
Man's Future Beneath the Sea (1968)
Solar Power of 1999 (1956)
Undersea Cities (1954)
Closer Than We Think! Fat Plants and Meat Beets (1958)
Delicious Waste Liquids of the Future (1982)
4 comments:
I'm glad there's the helpful arrow labelled "laboratory fungi" (it's pointing at the flask, right, not the woman?) -- otherwise I'd have no idea what laboratory fungi were. Now I have a complete, accurate (if hand-drawn, black-and-white) image of what they are!
Interesting slant on the 50s / 60s fascination with living under the sea. Absolutely no reason to grow these protein fungi under the sea (and in fact much more cumbersome and complex), but hey, It's Futuristic!
Hey! I'm growing a farm in my sneakers right now!
Great idea, since the fish in the ocean aren't very safe to eat due to our pollution.
Look up Quorn; it's in your grocery store already.
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