Sowing on the Moon

If you want to establish a permanent base on the moon, it will be necessary, among other things, for the astronauts to be able to grow their own food. Bringing food from Earth would be very expensive and would also limit the ability to carry other valuable goods and scientific equipment.

The more independent the lunar base is, the better it will be for its development, but what can be grown on the moon, the regolith, which is what the lunar soil is called, is made up of dust and small rocks, posing two very serious obstacles for space agriculture.

One is what it contains and the other problem is what it lacks; The second should be easy, we could take some nutrients to start the agricultural process, but the biggest problem is the toxins contained in the lunar soil.

In a recent research published on January 22 by scientists Jessica Atkin from the University of Texas and Brown University doctoral student Sara Oliveira Pedro dos Santos, they have reached a solution, which would be to create a basic ecosystem, for which the researchers They have used fungi that capture heavy metals and in this way clean the soil so that plants can develop.

And as nutrients they have used vermicompost, which is the product of a worm farm, it is the worm waste called compost, it points out that worms can also feed not only on food scraps but also on used clothing and hygiene items.

The researchers decided to grow chickpeas in a series of vessels filled with a replica of lunar soil, there were three groups, one group had mushrooms added, another group only had pure lunar soil and in the third group there were mushrooms and 25% of the soil is the product of the action of worms on waste, which is vermicompost.

The plants that had no protection from the fungi, those that were in the pure lunar soil, began to die at the tenth week, although those that had fungi did not last much longer, only two more weeks, but those that did managed to thrive and flower. It was the plants of the Third group that had fungi and worm soil, now we just need to know if the chickpeas have the components of a quality chickpea so that they give a good stew.

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