Horticulture for Mars

Wheeler, Ray

doi:10.17660/actahortic.2004.642.22

Cited by 31 publications

(22 citation statements)

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“…The use of solar lighting will ultimately depend on the setting: For example, on the moon there are roughly 14 days of dark and 14 days of light (Salisbury, 1992). On Mars, the photoperiod is 24.6 h, similar to the Earth_s, but the solar intensity at Mars_ orbit is only 43% that of Earth_s, and extensive dust storms can occur at some latitudes on Mars (Salisbury, 1992;Wheeler, 2004). In addition, techniques for capturing the light and delivering it to a protected environment will be needed (Wheeler and Martin-Brennan, 2000).…”

Section: Light-photoperiod Par and Spectrummentioning

confidence: 99%

Potato and Human Exploration of Space: Some Observations from NASA-Sponsored Controlled Environment Studies

Wheeler

2006

Potato Research

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Future space exploration by humans will require reliable supplies of food, oxygen and clean water to sustain the expeditions. Potato is one of several crops being studied for such a Blife support^role. Tests sponsored by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed the well-known short day tendencies for tuberisation, but also revealed that some cultivars (e.g., Norland, Denali and Russet Burbank) could tuberise well under continuous high light. Horticultural tests showed that plants grew well and tuberised readily using a nutrient film technique (NFT). CO 2 enrichment studies with potato showed typical C 3 responses in photosynthesis and yield, with maximum rates occurring near 1000 mmol mol j1 . The highest tuber yields from these controlled environment studies reached 19.7 kg FM m j2 or equivalent to nearly 200 t ha j1 . This equated to a productivity of 38 g DM day j1 . Stand evapotranspiration (ET) rates ranged from 3.4 to 5.2 l m j2 day j1 throughout growth, while maximum ET rates for canopies could approach 10 l m j2 day j1 . Harvest indices (tuber DM/total DM) typically ranged from 0.7 to 0.8, indicating that waste (inedible) biomass from potato would be less than that from many other crops. An experiment was conducted in 1995 on NASA_s Space Shuttle using excised potato leaves to study tuber formation at axillary buds during spaceflight. The results showed that tubers formed equally well in space as in the ground controls, indicating that reduced gravity should not be an impediment to tuberisation.

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Section: Light-photoperiod Par and Spectrummentioning

confidence: 99%

Potato and Human Exploration of Space: Some Observations from NASA-Sponsored Controlled Environment Studies

Wheeler

2006

Potato Research

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“…Thus, human habitats and crop-growth modules very likely will be sheltered or located underground (ACCESS Mars, 2009). Moreover, sunlight will be reduced or not available at all times due to local conditions such as long dust storms on Mars, the periodically increased distance between Mars and the Sun, or extended dark periods on most locations of the Moon (Cockell and Andrady, 1999;Cockell, 2001;Horneck et al, 2003;Rontó et al, 2003;Salisbury, 1992;Wheeler, 2004), making electric lighting a more reliable option for growing food plants in space (Massa et al, 2006). However, it has been estimated that 40 to 50 m 2 of cropping area, in continuous use, would be necessary to fully sustain each crew member (Mitchell et al, 1997), which would require considerable energy for a traditional electric croplighting scenario (Drysdale, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Significant reduction in energy for plant-growth lighting in space using targeted LED lighting and spectral manipulation

Poulet

Massa

Morrow³

et al. 2014

Life Sciences in Space Research

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100

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“…The special metabolic requirements of seeds and seedlings complicates predictions of growth of more mature plants in space. Although numerous plants have been grown in space to test crop performance (Wheeler, 2004), the bulk of physiological research is based on Arabidopsis in the seedling stage (Correll et al, 2013;Paul et al, 2013) or even callus (Zhang et al, 2015). The transition between seedlings and mature plants and ensuing consequences for development are rarely studied (De Micco et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%