July 12 (UPI) — China has harvested its first batch of rice grown from seeds that traveled to space on the country’s Chang’e-5 lunar probe, officials said Sunday.
About 40 grams of seeds made the trip to the moon last November. Some seeds can mutate and produce higher yields when planted on Earth after being exposed to cosmic radiation and zero gravity.
The Chinese have been sending seeds into space since 1987, including rice, cotton and tomatoes.
Chinese state-run media reported it took four months of growing at the South China Agricultural University in Guangdong province before the seeds started to produce grain.
“It will take a few more generations and go through a series of tests, comparisons and regional trials before passing provincial-and state-level reviews,” Xu Lei, a rice breeding expert from Northeast China’s Liaoning province, told the Global Times.
Wang Ya’nan, a space analyst and chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, said he believes growing the batches is the first step of producing food in space.
“With long-term human stays at the space station, researchers are hoping to conduct experiments to test a self-recycling ecosystem in space, which will greatly cut costs and reduce the resources needed for future manned spaceflights,” Wang told the Global Times. “This will support more deep-space explorations, including the building of a lunar research base and manned missions to Mars.”