io9
The first lunar colonists will grow their own vegetables directly in the soil of the moon, while Earthbound romantics will order moonroses for their sweethearts. Researchers now claim that instead of carting tons of Earth soil to the moon for agriculture, moonfarms will use the dirt, rock and dust already present. The secret to growing plants on the seemingly infertile lunar surface? Just add bacteria.
Scientists with the European Space Agency experimented with marigolds grown in crushed anorthosite, an Earth-rock that is a close analogue to the lunar surface. Just potting the flowers in anorthosite was not effective. They didn't grow. But adding certain bacteria made a huge difference. The marigolds didn't exactly flourish in the faux moondirt, but they did grow and even blossomed. The bacteria facilitated the transfer of nutrients from the anorthosite to the plants.
Of course, the area where the plants were grown would need to be domed (they still need air) and watered, but they could be part of a water filtration system or even provide food for a self-sustaining lunar colony. While the ESA has no actual plans to go to the moon anytime soon, some scientists think we could send a robot to plant lunar veggies before the first colonists arrive. Photo by: BBC.
Comments
With the meat from a vat, Baby, you've got a moon stew going!
Terraforming for the future!! :D
And we'll, call that robot "Hughie" after Bruce Dern buries his pals in the forest.
Cool article. The lower gravity should make for interesting plant growth.
I have to admit, those are the saddest little marigolds I've ever seen. I think we'll all end up eating algae.
Why wouldn't we use soil-less gardening, like Hydroponics? If you have a system that is capable of recovering the water and adding just the amount of nutrients it needs for the plants, a few gallons of nutrients could last a very long time if you're just making food for small amounts of people. I do get the self sustaining part though, the ability to get everything you need from the moon, but it just seems like it would be better to develop a way to get the nutrients out of the rock in a separate process and using a method of growth known to produce excellent results. Maybe setup the rock/bacteria thing in a separate part of the system that saturates the water with the nutrients it needs.
We could use another formula to populate the moon with food...
Bacteria + steriods = more plant growth and unibrows
@tamoko: We'll probably have air tight personal plant pods that are chained to the moon
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