Scientists show how to turn lunar soil fertile for agriculture

Scientists have found a way to turn inhospitable lunar soil fertile by introducing bacteria that enhance the availability of phosphorus, an important plant nutrient.

If humankind is ever to establish long-term bases on the moon, there will be a need for a regular source of food. It is not practical, however, to think you can plant corn or wheat in plain lunar soil in greenhouses on the moon and expect a bumper crop - or any crop at all.

But scientists are taking steps toward making moon agriculture a real possibility. Researchers said on Thursday they have found a way to turn inhospitable lunar soil fertile by introducing bacteria that enhance the availability of phosphorus, an important plant nutrient.

They performed experiments growing a relative of tobacco using simulated moon soil, more properly called lunar regolith, in a laboratory in China. They found that such soil treated with three species of bacteria produced plants with longer stems and roots as well as heavier and wider clusters of leaves compared to the same soil without the microbes.

The action of the bacteria, the researchers said, made the soil more acidic. This resulting low pH environment caused insoluble phosphate-containing minerals to dissolve and release the phosphorus in them, increasing phosphorus availability for the plants.

"The importance of these findings is that we may be able to use these microbes to turn the lunar regolith into bio-friendly substrate for plant cultivation in future lunar greenhouses," said researcher Yitong Xia of the China Agricultural University in Beijing, lead author of the study published in the journal Communications Biology.

In a study published last year, researchers in the United States grew a flowering weed called Arabidopsis thaliana in 12 thimble-sized containers, each bearing a gram of actual moon soil collected during NASA missions more than a half century ago.

Arabidopsis, also called thale cress, is a plant widely used in scientific research. In that study, Arabidopsis did grow, but not as robustly in the lunar soil as in volcanic ash from Earth used for comparative purposes, suggesting that lunar soil could use a little help to become more fertile.