On Fri, 7 Apr 2006, Bryan Newell wrote: > > It's interesting that the enclouding doesn't seem to > > adversely effect the production of many crops that on Earth > > depend greatly on sunlight. For example, there are some > > excellent wine-producing regions that are apparently within > > the Empire (Khaavren, for example). > > http://dragaera.info/mailinglists/archive.cgi?1:mss:14445:200407:cecihpcpilkhkkgihbie FWIW I still don't buy that explanation - it seems entirely unlikely that the East enjoys an earthlike insolation while the Overcast filters the spectrum to orange without depressing the intensity from that frequency - and that plants would do as well in filtered light as in full-spectrum seems impossible. There had to have been a regression in productivity/acre during the development of the Overcast (presumably compensated by improvements in agriculture technique, such as the nitrogen-fixing-by-Orb I suggested back in the thread Bryan points to), in particular relative to the East.