A team of scientists managed to grow potatoes in a simulator which replicates exactly the extreme environmental conditions on the Red Planet. Researchers have achieved their goal of growing a potato plant. This successful experiment foretells the success of extraterrestrial agriculture. They also demonstrated that food production is also possible in droughty and dry areas on Earth.
- Researchers have developed a new study trying to grow potatoes in tough environmental conditions.
- They developed a simulator for Mars-like conditions and planted potato plants.
- Their plan appear to be successful and it could possibly solve the hunger problem i the world.
Julio Valdivia, an astrobiologist at the University of Engineering and Technology, declared on March 30 that their new study does not only wants to prove that people will be able to grow potatoes on an another planet, but also that the potato plant is one of the few plants which can grow in dry regions. The plant is resistant in non-cultivable regions on our planet.
Valdivia is working together with a team of researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. They helped him develop the simulator for Red Planet’s environment. The device can feature temperatures lower than zero, creating a high concentration of carbon monoxide and the air pressure was altered to suit an altitude of 20,000 feet.
The project began in 2016. Both teams of scientists are bound to continue their work, struggling to grow potatoes in different extreme conditions to observe the variety of outcomes. NASA has developed similar studies in the past. Nevertheless, most of these researchers’ work focused on improving extraterrestrial environments to enable oxygen and food production, together known as terraforming.
The new research could help people here on Terra solve the hunger problem which affects about 20 million people around the globe, among which 1.4 million individuals are children. Valdivia argued that the most important result of this study was that they could demonstrate that people could grow vegetables in non-cultivable regions., like arid places and deserts.
Global aid organizations, like the World Food Program (WFP) and the United Nations (UN) are concerned about the high risk of famine in Nigeria, Yemen, and Somalia. In the newest country of the world, South Sudan, the US already declared famine in some regions, affecting more than a million people. Serge Tissot, a UN Food and Agriculture Organization representative in South Sudan, argued that famine is a dramatic reality in some areas of South Sudan, where people live their worst nightmares. Scientists can save people from hunger if they use the methods in the new project.
Image source: pixabay
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