Taking a green step on the red planet

Looking back at the success stories that marked the year 2022, researchers of the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) showed that plants can grow on simulated regolith, despite the scarcity of the fundamental element nitrogen.

According to the international roadmap for space exploration, the first human installations on the planet Mars are planned by 2040. The cultivation of edible plants in situ on Martian or lunar surfaces will generate oxygen while at the same time producing food for visitors and future colonies. Water emitted and purified by plants will be able to be condensed and recycled. In line with the national research and innovation strategy and its objectives focusing on space resources to support life, LIST has begun to study plant growth on the simulated Martian regolith using a combination of imaging and omics. Italian ray-grass was used as a model of a rapidly growing herbaceous species.

"At some point in the future where there are Martian outposts, the future colonists will have to grow plants in situ using resources that can actually be found on Mars, such as regoliths. So it’s necessary to understand how plants react from a physiological point of view when grown on this type of substrate. We went up to a maximum of four weeks to see how the plants would behave on regolith simulants and they do grow, but as expected they show signs of nutrient deficiencies." Gea GUERRIERO, Senior Research and Technology Associate.

The research teams showed that plants can grow on simulated regolith, despite the scarcity of the fundamental element nitrogen. They can even regrow after being cut. The ray-grass can therefore be used in a hypothetical scenario where it is harvested to obtain the organic matter to be used as feed. The molecular data obtained for the first time showed changes in the plant mechanism, whereby the leaves and roots adapted to grow in the substrate. The results published in the Science of the Total Environment attracted the interest of NASA's Open Science Data Repository (GeneLab) and were highlighted in the Mascot newsletter.

Discover more success stories in the digital version of the LIST 2022 annual report.