New Research: You Could Grow Crops in Martian Soil

This is good news for off-world colonies.

Astronaut Farmer

Martian and Moon soil is surprisingly fertile, and new research suggests it may someday be possible to harvest crops grown at off-world colonies.

When Wageningen University scientists tried to grow ten different crops in soils developed by NASA to mimic that found on Mars and the Moon, nine of them grew edible parts and viable seeds, according to research published this month in the journal Open Agriculture.

While future off-world farmers will have to grapple with countless other problems — like, uh, the lack of an atmosphere — the experiment is still a tentative good sign for the future of off-world settlements.

First Steps

The plants grown in simulated Martian or lunar soil weren't as successful as those grown in normal Earth conditions, and in most cases the mock Martian crops fared better than the Moon plants. Still, vegetables like tomatoes, radishes, rye, and quinoa grew in both types of space soil, with spinach as the lone casualty.

"We were thrilled when we saw the first tomatoes ever grown on Mars soil simulant turning red," project leader Wieger Wamelink said in a press release. "It meant that the next step towards a sustainable closed agricultural ecosystem had been taken."

READ MORE: Soil on moon and Mars likely to support crops [De Gruyter via Phys.org]

More on Mars farming: Contaminating Mars With Microbes Could Kickstart Colonization