NASA's biomass production chamber: A testbed for bioregenerative life support studies

Closed bioregenerative life support systems: Applicability to hot deserts

“…It was found that the productivity of wheat, especially its photosynthetic constituent, is a nearly linear function of incident PPF up to 2.5 times the summer sunlight intensity, taken as the integrated (Bugbee et al, 1989) or instantaneous value (Tikhomirov, 1996). A considerable rise in plant productivity with increasing PPF and CO 2 concentration (up to 2000 ppm, which is 5 times CO 2 content in atmospheric air) was observed by Qin et al (2008) for lettuce, by Wheeler et al (1996Wheeler et al ( , 2008aWheeler et al ( , 2008b for wheat, potato, tomato, and soybean, and by Nelson et al (2008) for pinto bean. For example, the pinto bean matured and harvested 20 days earlier than is typical for this variety in the field.…”

“…Its performance depends on light intensity [photosynthetic photon flux, PPF, 400 to 700 nm, which accounts for 32% of the total Sun irradiance (Sager et al, 1992)], temperature, carbon dioxide and oxygen concentrations, and air velocity over the plant canopy, which must be controlled and monitored in the system (Bugbee et al, 1989;Wheeler et al, 1996Wheeler et al, , 2008aWheeler et al, , 2008bAndre et al, 1989Andre et al, , 1999Borodina et al, 2003;Nelson et al, 2003aNelson et al, , 2008Qin et al, 2008;Kitaya 2003;Kitaya et al, 2008;McKeehen et al, 1996;Allen et al, 1999Allen et al, , 2003Berkovich, 2008).…”

“…The integrated efficiency of these processes, determined on an energy basis as the ratio of the biomass energy content to photons energy content, is a highly illustrative characteristic of the possibilities of different growing environments (Table 1). The above processes were experimentally studied by monitoring PPF, gas exchange (photosynthetic rate in mol CO 2 /(m 2 s), respiration rate in mol O 2 /(m 2 s)), fresh and dry plant mass, and plant tissue composition by Bugbee et al (1989); Wheeler et al (1996Wheeler et al ( , 2008aWheeler et al ( , 2008b; Nelson et al (2008), and other researchers for wheat, tomato, potato, lettuce, soybean, cowpeas, pinto bean, and many other higher plants. It was found that the productivity of wheat, especially its photosynthetic constituent, is a nearly linear function of incident PPF up to 2.5 times the summer sunlight intensity, taken as the integrated (Bugbee et al, 1989) or instantaneous value (Tikhomirov, 1996).…”

Adaptation of Substor for Controlled–environment Potato Production With Elevated Carbon Dioxide

“…In order to simulate this effect in SUBSTOR, G3 was parameterized as a non-linear function of average daily photoperiod (PP) and daily light integral (SRAD) as in equation 2 (r 2 = 0.99) using data from the Rutgers experiments conducted by Wheeler et al (1996) and Tibbitts et al (1994). This change allowed the maximum tuber growth rate to vary daily as a function of irradiance and photoperiod: …”

Undergraduate Sustainable Learning: Effects of Sustainable Soilless Media on Production and Sensory Evaluation of Cucumbers, Basil, Parsley, and Lettuce

“…Parsley is a cultivated herb, harvested for fresh or dried leaves and/or petioles, as well as essential oils [25]. Leaf and head lettuce is an important salad crop and is also of interest for long-term space missions by The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration [26]. Lettuce requires >4,550 GJ/ha −1 -year to produce in heated greenhouses in northern latitudes for a low energy output/input ratio of 0.002 [6,7].…”