Progressive Plant Growing Has Business Blooming

With great interest, NASA sought Stoner’s experience in 1997 for an experiment to be carried out aboard Mir. The Space Agency immediately became interested in the low-water requirements of the aeroponic growing method. Using aeroponics to grow plants in space could reduce the amount of water carried during flight, thus, reducing the overall weight of the payload. Additionally, NASA has strict regulations concerning the use of pesticides within closed space habitats, so it was equally interested in experimenting with the ODC formula Stoner had been working on.

Stoner assented to NASA’s request for assistance, and BioServe was brought on board to help direct the research, in light of having flown a multitude of payload experiments on previous missions.

The goal of the NASA research was to determine whether or not the antifungal response of the plants was maintained during space flight. Looking at the bigger picture, the results could ultimately lead to new strategies for growing and maintaining healthy food plants on long-term space flights or for future bases on other planets and moons.

For the actual microgravity experiment, astronauts worked with adzuki bean seeds and seedlings, a high-protein Asian food crop. Along with the space-based experiment, concurrent ground control experiments were being conducted on adzuki bean seeds and seedlings back on Earth. This was done to investigate the plants’ responses in two different gravitational environments.

{MOSIMAGE}In general, the adzuki bean seeds and seedlings sprouted quite well both on Earth and aboard the space station. The Mir-grown seeds and seedlings, however, exhibited more growth than those grown on Earth. Though no fungal challenge was intentionally introduced into the plants, the researchers did witness fungal infection of several of the seedlings on both Earth and Mir. Preliminary visual analysis indicated that the seeds and seedlings that were treated with the ODC method grew more robustly and exhibited less fungal infection than the untreated seeds and seedlings. This was true for both flight and ground experiments. Post-biochemical analysis supported this finding and further showed that these plants retained their fungal-fighting abilities and the ODC method maintained its effectiveness in microgravity.

The success of this NASA experiment led to others, designed by Stoner and his company under numerous NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts from Kennedy Space Center. Stoner took advantage of the SBIR support to create for NASA a high-performance, gravity-insensitive, enclosed aeroponic system for food production in space, as well as a low-mass, inflatable aeroponic system for rapid crop production of pesticide-free herbs, grains, tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, and other vegetables.

The high-performance, gravity-insensitive, enclosed aeroponic system can be used to produce various food crops that NASA intends to grow in space. The SBIR award contributed to the development of several methods that allow a plant’s only by-product to be the plant itself. This system is now being used by commercial growers and producers for clean, efficient, and rapid food production. Crops can be planted and harvested in the system year round without interruption, and without contamination from soil, pesticides, and residue.