FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Multidisciplinary researchers at the University of Arkansas presented a paper showing their success with growing genetically modified rice in Martian soil.
The research, titled "Rice Can Grow and Survive in Martian Regolith with Challenges That Could be Overcome Through Control of Stress-Related Genes," presented at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Dallas states that the biggest challenge of farming on Martian soil is the presence of salts that are generally considered to be toxic for plants.
The team used a Martian soil simulant developed by NASA and and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory called Mojave Mars simulant (MMS) which is obtained from soil in the Mojave Desert. On this soil, three different varieties of rice were grown, including two strains with genetic mutations that better enable them to respond to stress, such as drought, sugar starvation or salinity.
However, the authors of the paper note that while plants were able to grow in the Martian simulant, they were not as developed as those grown in regular potting soil.
With these results, the team will move on to experimenting with other Martian soil simulants and strains of rice as well as introducing the grain into a closed habitat chamber to simulate the temperature and atmosphere of the planet.
This research can also be used on Earth in areas where the soil has high salt levels such as Australia, according to Abhilash Ramachandran, a post-doctoral fellow at the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences who co-authored the abstract.
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