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NASA has big plans for space farms and there are plenty of ideas from astrobiologists for what the best crops to grow on Mars could be. To best optimize these future extraterrestrial farms, scientists are also exploring what planting methods could boost potential crop yields on the Red Planet. Some new experiments with tomato, carrot, and pea plants found that growing different crops mixed together could boost yields of some plants in certain Martian conditions.
Wageningen University & Research /Rebeca Gonçalves. Picking plants For the plants on this fake Martian farm, the team selected peas, carrots, and tomatoes. A 2014 study found that all three are able to grow in Martian regolith. According to Gonçalves, knowing that these plants could grow was key, since they were looking for an answer to a different question.
Wageningen University & Research /Rebeca Gonçalves. “They were chosen for their nutritional content, being high in antioxidants, vitamin C, and beta carotene,” says Gonçalves. “This is important because these nutrients are all completely lost in the process of food dehydration, which is the main process we use to send food to space missions. Therefore, the production of fresh food containing these nutrients is a must in a Martian colony.
Wageningen University & Research/Rebeca Gonçalves. “Carrots were used to help aerate the soil, which can improve water and nutrient uptake by the companion plants, and tomatoes were used to provide shade for the temperature sensitive carrot and to give climbing support for the peas,” says Gonçalves. Red fruit, red planet All three species grew fairly well in the Martian regolith, producing just over half a pound of produce with only a minimum addition of nutrients.
Wageningen University & Research /Rebeca Gonçalves. However, intercropping in this regolith appeared to decrease yields for the carrots and peas. These plants did better alone. In future experiments, the team hopes that some modifications to how the simulated Martian regolith is treated could help increase yields when intercropping is used, so that the carrots and peas can have similarly bigger harvests.
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