A team of scientists say they’ve successfully grown chickpeas using lunar regolith, the dirt that’s found on the surface of the Moon.
The news comes as NASA prepares to launch the second mission in its Artemis programme, with plans to send astronauts to the Moon during Artemis IV and eventually establish a permanent lunar base.
Growing food on the Moon will become vital if NASA wants to ensure sustained human presence on the Moon. This study suggests that future lunar colonists may be able to add chickpeas to the menu.
Lunar hummus, anyone?
Growing food on the Moon
The chickpea study was carried out by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin.
They used simulated ‘Moon dirt’ to grow and harvest chickpeas in a lab. It’s the first time chickpeas have ever been grown using this medium.
“The research is about understanding the viability of growing crops on the Moon,” says Sara Santos, principal investigator of the project.
“How do we transform this regolith into soil? What kinds of natural mechanisms can cause this conversion?”
Santos says the work is a big leap in understanding what food it’s possible to grow on the Moon.
Lunar regolith lacks the microorganisms and organic material plants need to live. It does contain nutrients and minerals for plants to grow, but also contains heavy metals that could be toxic.
The science team used simulated Moon dirt that replicates the composition of lunar samples brought back to Earth by Apollo astronauts.
They added vermicompost, which is a byproduct of red wiggler earthworms, and rich in plant nutrients and minerals.
During the study, earthworms produced the vermicompost by consuming organic material such as food scraps or cotton-based clothes and hygiene products that would normally be thrown away on space missions.
Then the team coated the chickpeas with fungi called arbuscular mycorrhizae, and planted them.
The fungi takes up essential nutrients needed for plant growth while also reducing the uptake of heavy metals from the Moon dirst.
The team found that mixtures of up to 75% Moon dirt produced harvestable chickpeas.
But at higher percentages of Moon dirt, the plants showed signs of stress and early death.
Stressed plants survived longer than chickpeas that weren’t inoculated with fungi, suggesting the fungi would be vital for growing chickpeas on the Moon.
Perhaps most vitally, the team found the fungi were able to colonise and survive in the simulated Moon dirt, suggesting they would only need to be introduced once during a real-life growing application.
The team are still working on the study, as it’s not yet known whether the chickpeas are safe to eat, or whether they would carry enough nutrients to keep astronauts healthy on long missions.
“We want to understand their feasibility as a food source,” says Jessica Atkin, first author on the paper and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M University.
“How healthy are they? Do they have the nutrients astronauts need? If they aren’t safe to eat, how many generations until they are?”
While more work clearly needs to be done, it seems scientists are getting closer to providing real solutions for growing food on the Moon.
‘Hummus on the Moon’ image (artist’s impression!): Moon: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University. Hummus: Anjelika Gretskaia / Getty Images
Read the full paper at Nature