Chickpeas may be able to grow on the moon with the help of a fungus and some worms. Lunar soil is notoriously inhospitable to life, but the addition of a simple fungus and earthworms can allow chickpeas 鈥� and possibly other plants as well 鈥� to grow there.
Moon dust is pointy and clumpy, lacks several of the nutrients that plants need and is full of toxic contaminants that could kill off any greenery聽trying to grow there. at Texas A&M University and at Brown University in Rhode Island used a type of fungus that forms symbiotic relationships called arbuscular mycorrhiza and worm manure, or vermicompost, to mitigate these problems and bolster the growth of chickpea plants.
The researchers chose chickpeas for their nutritional benefits, as well as the fact that the fungus can form a symbiotic relationship with them. Arbuscular mycorrhizae have been shown to help remove radioactive elements and heavy metals from soil, so they were a natural choice to help filter the contaminants from moon dust. 鈥淭he worse the soil conditions, the better the fungus does,鈥� says Atkin. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 part of why I thought of this 鈥� you want poor soil? I got some for you!鈥�
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The worms can eat material that would otherwise be thrown away, such as food scraps and old clothing, and turn it into fertiliser to give the soil nutrients it lacks. The researchers expected this, combined with the fungus鈥檚 ability to filter toxins out of the moon dust, to help the plants grow while making the soil more fertile over time.
They tested this by growing chickpeas in a mix of synthetic lunar dust and vermicompost, both with and without the fungus. None of the plants without fungus survived to flower, and the plants grown in just moon dirt without worms also died. But the chickpeas grown in a mix of vermicompost and moon dust with the fungus survived and flowered. This marks the first time chickpeas have been grown in a mix containing more than 30 per cent moon dust.
It isn鈥檛 yet clear whether those first chickpeas will be edible, though. 鈥淭hey will need to be tested for heavy metal concentrations, and we鈥檙e going to do that,鈥� says Atkin. 鈥淓ven if the first few generations of chickpeas are not edible, the bioremediation process could take those toxins out of the soil over time.鈥� That could be a step towards growing other plants in the same soil, which would be a huge help for astronauts living on the moon for any significant period of time.
bioRxiv
