--- title: "Bad News! The Plants Grown in Moon Soil Turned Out Wretched" description: "Remember those plants grown in soil collected by Apollo astronauts? Bad news -- it sounds like they didn't turn out so great." date: "2022-05-31" modified: "2022-05-31" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/lunar-soil-sad-plants" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Moon" - "Space" tags: - "horticulture" - "lunar soil" - "moon rocks" - "the digest" --- # Bad News! The Plants Grown in Moon Soil Turned Out Wretched ![Remember those plants grown in soil collected by Apollo astronauts? Bad news -- it sounds like they didn't turn out so great.]() *\Image: Communications Biology\* ## Moon Unit Remember when scientists [grew seedlings in actual Moon soil](), collected by Apollo astronauts? Well, don't get too psyched for delicious lunar salad just yet. In a new [interview with *Astronomy Magazine*](), University of Florida horticultural scientist Rob Ferl — the author of a [recent *Communications Biology* study]() detailing the experiment — brought us down to Earth with a description of just how wretched the miraculous plants turned out. "Plants grown in lunar soil tended to be smaller," Ferl told the magazine, "and they contained purplish pigments that were indications of stress." Seriously, do these things look tasty? Now we're not so sure. ![]() ## Stressed Out According to the horticulturist, the plants used in the experiment — the flowering *Arabidopsis* weed found in Europe and Asia, which scientists like to use because [its whole genome has been mapped]() — really didn't seem to dig the difference between the nutrient-rich soil we have on Earth versus the metallic dirt found on the Moon. "Given conditions on the Moon," Ferl told *Astronomy*, "you can’t just throw seeds out on the surface and ask them to grow." On the one hand, it's a huge leap forward that the plants were able to grow at all. Given these results, though, it sounds like we're still a long ways off from being able to grow food in a lunar greenhouse. **READ MORE:** [Scientists have grown plants in genuine lunar soil]() \[*Astronomy Magazine*\] **More on moon junk:** *[Someone's Selling NASA Moon Dust That Got Eaten By Cockroaches]()* ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()