Grow - Blog Posts

Subject: #GreenIQ Topic: Spring planting! Hello everyone, thought I give you a sneak preview of what I'm busy with in my #backyard. Decided I'm going all #green this year and I've dubbed the momentum as "Green IQ". So, the #springplanting2018 has begun and I'm welcoming the #season with much #enthusiasm. The idea here is to bring forth a simplistic plartform, from which the #urbanfarming #concept will be #born. Places with #confinedspaces such as #townships; #townhouses and #metropoles to name but a few, can #benefit from having #access to #freshproduce in #terms of #health; #conviniency and of cause #economicprospects. But for #now, let's let this #baby #grow and #begin to put that #firstfoot in #front of the other. We will be #watching #closely! https://www.instagram.com/p/BoQ9SJxgYwk/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=vrkk9upzo2sa

How does a microgravity garden grow when there's no up or down? An advanced chamber, about the size of a mini-fridge, is giving us a clearer perspective of plant growth habits. Without gravity and the addition of a wide variety of light and humidity settings, the plants cultivated on the International Space Station provide a world of opportunity to study space-based agricultural cycles.

Learn more about our space garden HERE.

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How do space plants grow? This experiment on the International Space Station hopes to find out. Space-grown plants look mostly normal, but have some distinct features compared to plants grown on Earth – most notably in the way their roots grow.

Roots evolved to grow “down” to search out nutrients and water, and on Earth, that response is predominantly governed by the force of gravity. But how does a plant know which way is down when there is no “down”? What determines the direction in which the plant’s roots should grow in space?

We are studying the molecular genetic signals that help guide plant growth in the novel environment of spaceflight, including how plants use new molecular “tools” to sense and respond to their environment when familiar signals are absent. What we learn could improve the way we grow plants in microgravity on future space missions, enabling crews to use plants for food and oxygen. This is just one of many petri plates filled with tiny plants from the Characterizing Arabidopsis Root Attractions-2 (CARA-2) that was recently harvest aboard the space station.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.