By Will Dunham(Reuters) – For future human bases or colonies on Mars to be self-sustaining, a reliable source of home-grown food will be a must. It simply would be too costly and risky to rely upon rocket deliveries to meet the food needs of colonists. With this in mind, scientists are exploring ways to optimize space farming.In a controlled greenhouse at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, researchers have now identified a way that shows promise for improving crop yields in simulated Martian soil, with different crops grown together in a method called “intercropping” pioneered by ancient Maya farmers.In their experiments, the researchers grew cherry tomatoes, peas and carrots together in pots. Tomatoes grown in this manner produced about double the yield of tomatoes grown alone – or “monocropped” – in the same simulated Martian soil, with more and bigger fruit. The tomatoes also flowered and matured earlier, gave more fruit per plant and had thicker stems.The yields of peas and carrots did not increase with intercropping.”Since this is pioneering research, where it’s the first time that this intercropping technique is applied to space agriculture, we really didn’t know what to expect,” said astrobiologist Rebeca Gonçalves, lead author of the s …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnBy Will Dunham(Reuters) – For future human bases or colonies on Mars to be self-sustaining, a reliable source of home-grown food will be a must. It simply would be too costly and risky to rely upon rocket deliveries to meet the food needs of colonists. With this in mind, scientists are exploring ways to optimize space farming.In a controlled greenhouse at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, researchers have now identified a way that shows promise for improving crop yields in simulated Martian soil, with different crops grown together in a method called “intercropping” pioneered by ancient Maya farmers.In their experiments, the researchers grew cherry tomatoes, peas and carrots together in pots. Tomatoes grown in this manner produced about double the yield of tomatoes grown alone – or “monocropped” – in the same simulated Martian soil, with more and bigger fruit. The tomatoes also flowered and matured earlier, gave more fruit per plant and had thicker stems.The yields of peas and carrots did not increase with intercropping.”Since this is pioneering research, where it’s the first time that this intercropping technique is applied to space agriculture, we really didn’t know what to expect,” said astrobiologist Rebeca Gonçalves, lead author of the s …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
