A team of scientists from the University of Florida has proven that plants can grow in lunar soil. In a paper published in the journal Communications Biology, the researchers detailed how they used soil gathered by astronauts during the Apollo missions to grow Arabidopsis thaliana, which is commonly known as thale cress.
NASA only supplied 12 grams of lunar soil collected from the Apollo 11, 12, and 17 missions. The researchers used a gram of soil for each seed and placed them under growth lights to see how they would react. They also planted seeds in simulated lunar soil created with volcanic ash from Earth.
Within a few days, all of the seeds started to sprout. The seeds planted in the simulated soil grew the best, while the others saw diminishing returns based on how old the soil samples were. While the plants did grow in the lunar soil, they all showed varying degrees of stress.
"At the genetic level, the plants were pulling out the tools typically used to cope with stressors, such as salt and metals or oxidative stress, so we can infer that the plants perceive the lunar soil environment as stressful," Anna-Lisa Paul, one of the study's authors and a research professor of horticultural sciences in UF/IFAS said. "Ultimately, we would like to use the gene expression data to help address how we can ameliorate the stress responses to the level where plants — particularly crops — are able to grow in lunar soil with very little impact to their health."
The scientists believe the stress on the plants was due to the amount of cosmic wind the soil was exposed to before it was collected by astronauts.
The team of researchers hopes their findings will help further NASA's Artemis Progam, which plans to create a permanent base of operations on the Moon.
"Artemis will require a better understanding of how to grow plants in space," said Rob Ferl, one of the study's authors and a distinguished professor of horticultural sciences at the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).