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

Abstract

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.

Crop productivities and radiation use efficiencies for bioregenerative life support

“…For example, the best edible biomass yields for potato obtained from tests at the University of Wisconsin (USA) using similar light intensities but different cultivation techniques exceeded 30 g m À2 d À1 , while RUE exceeded 0.80 mol À1 PAR (Wheeler, 2006). Moreover it is well established that biomass production and gas exchange outputs are closely tied to light intensity (Bubgee and Salisbury, 1988;Bugbee and Monje, 1992;Wheeler et al, 1993).…”

“…For example, the use of LED lighting for plant cultivation in space (Bula et al, 1991) has now expanded into commercial controlled environment agriculture; crop yields from life support studies demonstrate that yields in field agriculture might be pushed beyond current world records (Bubgee and Salisbury, 1988;Tibbitts et al, 1994;Wheeler, 2006); recirculating hydroponic techniques taken from life support testing are now being used to produce disease free seed potatoes (Wheeler, 2006); and quantification of canopy gas exchange, which is intrinsic to life support measurements, has proved to be a powerful diagnostic tool for assessing crop performance and stress (Bubgee and Salisbury, 1988;Bugbee and Monje, 1992;Wheeler et al, 1993). Table 4 Adjusted outputs from NASA's Biomass Production Chamber reflecting reduced production time using transplants for soybean, lettuce, potato, and tomato, and increased yields of wheat by implementing ethylene control a Assumes 12 d eliminated from production cycles of soybean, lettuce, potato, and tomato by using seedling transplants.…”

Growth and Yield Response of Three Aeroponically Grown Potato Cultivars (Solanum tuberosum L.) to Different Electrical Conductivities of Nutrient Solution

“…The EC values generally fall between 1.5 and 3 dS m −1 for most hydroponic crops (Benoit, 1992). The EC values vary depend on growing season (Chang, 2004), but range from 1.2 (Wheeler, 2006) to 1.7-2.2 dS m −1 (Rolot and Seutin, 1999) in some studies for potatoes. In hydroponic lettuce, solution EC had to be reduced to prevent a rise in tissue nitrate compared to the conditions for rapid growth (Gent, 2003).…”

Horta Fácil: software para o planejamento, dimensionamento e gerenciamento de hortas em geral

“…Com intento de compensar esta inconstância ou outras dificuldades (Omiti et al, 2000), o escalonamento de cultivo tem se apresentado como solução para sistemas de cultivo contínuo simples e integrados (Stutte et. al, 1999;Wheller, 2006). Todavia, existe uma dificuldade latente na produção de um escalonamento de cultivo eficiente pela baixa difusão de modelos de cultivo e inerente complexidade dos mesmos no caso de algumas hortaliças de colheita contínua (Maluf, 2006b).…”