Antarctic regolith as prospective substrate for cultivation of plants in space analog habitat greenhouses: Seed germination and early growth study of broccoli in aqueous and acidic dilutions
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Czech Polar Reports |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | full text available here |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.5817/CPR2024-2-20 |
| Keywords | Photosynthesis; chlorophyll fluorescence; Brassica oleracea; space; greenhouse analogue; space missions; agriculture; ISRU |
| Attached files | |
| Description | Food prouction for the needs of space mission crews has posed one of the leading con-cerns of recent space research. One of the arguably best terrestrial analogs of extrater-restrial habitats are the polar research stations, such as those found in Antarctica. Plants cultivation, offering a valulable source of fresh food, have been a prominent research topicnot only for their significance for space analog experiments, but also for the needs of the scientists working at these stations. One of the approaches is the In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), which in this case can be adopted by cultivating crops directly in the local soil. Our study aims to evaluate early growth phase and photosynthetic performance of Brassica oleracea var. botrytis italica in Antarctic regolithcollected at foothill of the Berry Hill mesa, James Ross Island, Antarctica. Fine grained regolith consisting primarily of hyaloclastic breccias was collected and transported to the labora-tories in the Czech Republic. For germination and growth of the experimental plants, leachates were prepared from the regolith using deionized water and 0.11 M acetic acid. Individuals of B. oleracea were cultivated from seedsin a Murashige-Skoog (MS) liquid solution under controlled conditions (T = 21°C, PAR = 120 µmol m-2 s-1) either without addition of regolith leachates (control) or with addition of leachates done by using demineralized water and weak acetic acid. |
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