The whole plant is edible!

Creation and application of WBEEP crops for space agriculture.
Photo courtesy of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences

As the pace of human exploration of space continues to accelerate, space agriculture with space food security as its core will attract more and more attention
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This strategy aims to develop elite crops with more edible parts, richer nutrients, higher yields, and more effective nutrient utilization for space farms.
It has guiding and forward-looking significance for the design of space crops and the construction of efficient space agriculture systems.
, To provide food and survival guarantee for future human deep space exploration and interstellar migration
.

According to researcher Ren Maozhi, in response to the special needs of space agriculture, the team developed the first "Lunar Micro Farm" on the back of the moon via Chang'e 4 in January 2019.
It carried cotton, rape, and potato seeds cultivated by the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
It has realized the first human experiment to cultivate plant seedlings on the moon, and opened the prelude for agriculture to space
.

The scientific researchers further used the potato as a model crop, explored germplasm breeding methods suitable for the needs of space agriculture, and proposed a technical approach to create a whole-plant edible elite plant, combined with the plant factory technology with a fully controllable environment, and the future will be for mankind.
Explore space to provide elite crop products.
The comprehensive application of this strategy will be able to effectively promote the development of space agriculture, urban agriculture and traditional agriculture
.

The research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Science and Technology Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences
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Related paper information: https://doi.