Growing plants in soil from the moon doesn't really work very well

After 20 days, the team harvested the plants and analysed their gene activity. The plants grown in lunar soil had higher activity in genes that help cope with stressful conditions.

“The primary reason that plants… presented such stress-related responses is that lunar regolith is quite different from the terrestrial [soil], it’s very low in carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous… nutrients that plants need. Lunar regolith is also very powdery and fine-grained… but the fragments are very sharp and angular.

“We could mitigate that by carefully choosing where we mine for materials to grow plants [on the moon],” said Paul. However, we wouldn’t get much nutrition from eating thale cress plants. “As for useability of human life support, [thale cress] is not a good candidate; it’s too small to produce meaningful biomass,” saysfrom Earth can grow in lunar soil, said Paul.at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Space in Norway. “We need to know if and how we can utilise the resources [on the moon] as well as optimise plant cultivation techniques.

Earth plants struggling to grow in non earth soil isn’t too surprising

Heard of this in the last twitter spaces. very interesting research.

It's a miracle that it grows at all.

Oh well better luck next time

பிடிமண்ணு எடுக்கிறது உங்க காதில் ஓக்கத்தாண்டா

I’m only a 10th grade biologist but once those plants die wouldn’t they make the soil more fertile? This process if possible could continue in lunar greenhouses

Would that be due to the nutrient deficiencys in the Lunar soil?

Well that’s a surprise 😂

Well duh. They're sterile. There's no organic material or bacteria. Plants grow in a subsurface matrix that has an entire ecology of bacteria and fungi and organic compounds. Soil only manages water, air, and nutrient retention. It's the soil ecology that plants need to thrive.

Mad that it works at all

I heard you can grow earth soil from moon plants, maybe try that?

I bet they were “stunted” because there were no nutrients in the soil. Are you going to Try mixing human waste next time?

Looking forward to the day when this experiment can be done with returned regolith samples from Mars. Simulated Martian regolith appears to show promise

try making a gun out of moon rocks

I wonder if earthworms/compost worms would survive with the abrasive moon soil. The minimal weight of some worm cocoons of a variety of species might be worth the effort of bringing into the mix?

Good start.

GROW THEM ON WATER LIKE THE MAYAN

excellent work. But I think more needs to be done to optimize soil microorganisms against radiation. In my opinion, this problem can be solved by working on microorganisms in areas with radioactive radiation such as Ramsar in Iran and Brazil.

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