Coldest city can now grow tomatoes all year round
April 28, 2017
Yakutsk in Russia’s Siberia province is one of the coldest cities in the world, with temperatures dropping to an average of minus 34° Celcius during the freezing winter months and only five hours of daylight.
While this means crops can't be grown in the frozen soil, local authorities now believe they've found a way around that. They've teamed up with Japanese firm Hokkaido Corporation to build greenhouses with special technology.
The local mayor Aisen Nikolaev hopes the project will go a long way to providing the fruit and vegetables that Yakutsk's people need.
Once the infrastructure construction has passed the second stage of completion, “we plan to harvest around 1700 tonnes of cucumbers, more than 600 tonnes of tomatoes, and around 25 tonnes of greens, which should satisfy about 30-40 percent of the Yakutsk population's needs”, explained Nikolaev.
The greenhouses are specially designed to withstand the extreme cold. Three layers of a thin film made from rubber with thermal insulation properties are used. The mayor said, “It is three times thinner, but at the same time it can be stretched widely. It takes seven tonnes of weight per square metre piece for the film to break.”
Interestingly, the material has the ability to receive better sunlight than ordinary glass. “[It] managed to last through this winter with temperatures dropping below minus 50 Celsius,” Nikolaev added.
Most of the produce till now had to be transported from Russia's Krasnodar region or imported from China. But if this technology proves to be a success, the tomatoes won't have to travel too far to feed Yakutsk.
