Recently, plants from a UF/IFAS experiment were flown home from the ISS in a return capsule. The experiment was particularly concerned with the Arabidopsis thaliana.
Earlier astronauts sowed and harvested the plants in the ISS. Back on Earth, the pants were shipped to researchers at the UF/IFAS Space Plants Lab. Among these researchers are Anna-Lisa Paul and Robert Ferl.
Anna-Lisa Paul, UF/IFAS horticultural sciences professor, examines plants grown on the International Space Station. Photo: UF/IFAS
Paul (the principal investigator of the experiment and director of the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research) says: "This latest experiment focuses on whether genetic strategies influence Arabidopsis plants' ability to adapt to the spaceflight environment. It also researches whether this adaptability is passed along to their offspring, making them better suited to growing in space,". said Paul, the principal investigator for the experiment. The study could help researchers understand how all plants respond to space travel."
Paul continues: "Consider the food we might grow and the plants we would use to clean our air. All might be better suited if we allow them to grow a generation in space first before relying on them for food and life support," she said. "If we learn that plants can be 'trained' to be in a space flight environment, we can expect plants can grow better adjusted to space as the generations go on."
A researcher in the UF/IFAS horticultural sciences department prepares plants grown on the International Space Station for examination. Photo: UF/IFAS
The plants were launched as seeds to the ISS in May and were grown in July. ISS astronauts harvested the plants in the fall. In December, the plants landed on Earth and arrived back to the researchers in January.
For more information:
UF/IFAS
www.ifas.ufl.edu