Quote from: Hoopla on June 13, 2017, 04:48:52 PMQuote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on June 13, 2017, 04:13:14 PM
There are a lot of considerations. One of them is that without plants in the first place, you wouldn't ever be likely to have a cloud cover in the first place. Basically, if this is an imaginary planet, you have to design the planet, and then you can build life with a backstory. For example, you might have a warm planet with a constantly-cycling thin cloud cover around the equator due to all the plant life. Light and heat still get through the clouds, and they can act as a pretty effective greenhouse layer.
The planet is very earth-like, and the constant cloud cover is basically over a landmass the size of the UK. The rest of the planet has regular weather, more or less. It is thought that this one landmass has been cursed by the gods, and has been covered by clouds for at least a few hundred years. Presumably it had more regular weather beforehand.
So I would assume whatever regular crops they had pre-cloud cover would start to yield less and less each harvest, with some of the heartier crops holding on.
The crops aren't a huge part of the story, though the cloud cover eventually would be. Basically wondering if it would be possible for this land to grow its own crops or whether they would have to be imported in from more hospitable lands.
It sounds to me like it would be possible, though the results would be meagre and they would likely depend on imports quite a bit.
Is it just sort of that typical misty-grey light cloud cover that sprinkles occasionally? Lots of crops grow fairly well under those conditions. You'd be looking at a lot of greens, root vegetables, not so much fruit, not a lot of grains. Rice might be OK. If we're talking thick dark clouds and heavy rain, you would have a serious problem; seeds couldn't get hold, you'd end up with severe runoff and erosion.