Gardening with tweezers is harder than it looks. Aboard China’s Tiangong space station, tiny lettuce seeds tend to float away the moment an astronaut picks them up. Continuer de lire On Tiangong, Even the Lettuce Seeds Need a Grip
Salad, with a door. The next lunar base may come with its own vegetable patch. Continuer de lire The Moon’s First Salad Bar Starts With an Airlock
Waste, put back to work. According to AG Information Network of the West, researchers at the University of South Florida have built a loop in which human waste goes in and plant food comes out. Continuer de lire Waste In, Salad Out: A Florida Lab Feeds Plants on Human Waste
Moon dust makes a poor garden. The Moon and Mars are covered in regolith, a mineral dust that is alkaline, laced with toxic elements such as aluminum, manganese and perchlorates, and stingy with the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium plants need. Continuer de lire The Moon’s Missing Soil Might Come From Fungi
A greenhouse with a price tag. Continuer de lire Strawberries Are Becoming a Commercial Space Product
Some space farming starts on the ground. According to the Italian news agency AISE, an Italy-Brazil-Angola partnership coordinated by the IILA organisation, backed by Italy’s foreign ministry, has opened its first phase of work on space agriculture, and none of it happens in orbit. Continuer de lire Three Countries, No Orbit: A Different Kind of Space Farm
Engineers at Tohoku University built a plasma device that makes fertilizer from air, a step toward lunar farming without shipping nutrients from Earth. Continuer de lire A Plasma Device Could Power the Moon’s Next Fertilizer Factory
A University of Florida hyperspectral tool spots crop drought stress by day five at 97% accuracy, without touching the plant, built with USDA and NASA. Continuer de lire A Non-Destructive Way to Catch Thirsty Crops Early
Aboard Tiangong, the Shenzhou-23 crew harvested the first rice samples in a bid to grow two full generations in orbit without sending a seed back to Earth. Continuer de lire Rice Just Cleared Its First Checkpoint in Orbit
Rice got high and became sweeter! Chinese scientists have discovered that rice grown aboard the Tiangong space station contains up to six times more sugar than its earthbound counterpart. According to Xinhua news agency, this research revealed that space-bred rice also showed increased protein content, suggesting new possibilities for both space exploration and Earth agriculture. From zero gravity to hero story. The pioneering 120-day experiment … Continuer de lire Sweet Success For Space Grown Rice
