Plants grown on the soil of the moon for the first time [TKB Science]

Creating a human colony on the moon can now be easy. Because to build a city anywhere, food comes first among the essential items. If the soil of that place is not fertilized, then from where will the crop grow? But scientists have now succeeded in growing plants for the first time in the soil of the moon. It was not an easy task but it was done.

Growing crops on the moon will not be easy. Because the soil there is rocky. During long space travel, fresh food will not be available on the moon. You cannot take away the soil of the earth. The cost will go up a lot. That’s why testing was done to grow crops on the soil of the moon.

During the Apollo missions of the American space agency NASA, a total of 382 kilograms of stones(soil) were brought from the moon to the earth. NASA distributed those stones among scientists. But it was not known that in how many years this soil will end. It is expected that America is planning to bring more soil from the Moon during the Artemis Missions.

Well, the soil of the moon in which the plants have been grown was brought from the moon to the ground in two vacuum sealed containers. A study about them has been published in the journal Communications Biology. In which it is clearly written that for the first time flowering plants have been grown in the soil of the moon. Although the earth’s water and air were mixed in this soil.

Plants grown in only 12 grams of soil

Professor Anna-Lisa Paul at the University of Florida said that plants have been grown in the soil of the moon before. But they were not grown that way. There are no pathogens in the soil of the moon. There are no other such substances…which harm the ground animals and plants. In the plants that were grown earlier, only the soil of the moon was sprinkled. This time plants have been grown only in the soil of the moon.

Anna-Lisa Paul and Professor Robert Furl found 12 grams of moon soil. After 11 years of continuous experimentation, Paul and Furl have achieved this success. They found soil brought from the missions of Apollo 11, 12 and 17. But growing crops in such a small amount of soil was a very difficult task. But both of them achieved this success.

Scientists have created new history

Paul and Furl together divided the soil into four different parts. Poured a liquid containing water and nutrients into it.  After this, the seeds of Arabidopsis were put in them. After a few days the seed started growing in that soil. It is not an easy task to become a seed plant even in such little soil.