Good evening Matthew this is Zorovan. we come to you this evening with an answer to the question about which types of vegetable will fair best in the dim period which the Earth is soon to experience

 

Firstly it needs to be made very clear that not all types of plant or vegetable will respond in the same way to the lack of sunlight due to the cloud of high-level volcanic ash

 

So whilst there will be shortages of certain types of foods, these will be able to be made up with a focus of attention on those types of plants which will weather this condition better

 

Those types of staple foods which are derived from 'ancient grasses' i.e. rice, wheat and the like will fair badly; these crop types will produce very poor yields. That said, the genetically modified varieties of these crops will be less affected and it would make sense to switch to these types; we are aware that this will be a highly contentious decision as a lot of suspicion still surrounds the whole area of GM

 

The one type of cereal which will fair surprisingly well is oats. we are not able to offer an explanation of this in simple terms; suffice to say that this plant type will deliver good yields

 

The one group of vegetables which will suffer very little ill effect during this difficult period will be root crops. In very simple terms there is a link here to fact that there exists no need to 'ripen' these types of food, which is very much the case with those derived from grasses, and so root crops and in particular the potato will go a long way to filling the gap which will be caused by the problems experienced with other staple foods

 

And finally a word about trees. Broad-leafed trees will suffer far more than narrow-leafed conifer types. This means that fruit trees for example will be hard hit. it should be noted however that trees will respond to this period as if it were an extended winter period: species will not go extinct over this period as it is too short: they will simply enter an extended dormant period

 

We hope this information is of use to your readers, and we welcome other questions of a similar nature. A very good evening