This Is The First Plant We Should Grow on Mars, New Study Finds

When we get to Mars, we will have to figure out how to make life sustainable there, and growing and cultivating crops is going to be a big part of that.

If you've watched The Martian, you'll know that the landscape of the red planet could be used to grow crops.

It wouldn't be easy. It's also full of salts and minerals that make most plants struggle to survive.

There is a new study suggesting a way forward. Researchers have determined that this crop can survive in volcanic soil like that on Mars and can be used to grow food like lettuce and turnips.

The researchers wrote in their paper that the soil on Mars is not suitable for propagation of food crops.

Strategies to desalinate briny water for long-term missions need to be developed.

Plants are going to have a hard time growing on the surface of Mars because they won't get the extra nutrition they need. A part of that is where alfalfa is.

It's difficult to get an exact match for the regolith on Mars, but the researchers created the best approximation they could.

They found that the growth of alfalfa was the same as it is on Earth.

A sample of Martian regolith was put through a test. Three plants that require little in the way of maintenance, grow quickly, and don't need a lot of water were grown successfully.

Fresh water was required. The team thinks the briny water on Mars could be treated with a type of marinebacteria and then used to make fresh water for crop growth.

For the first time, we report an integrated use of a biofertilizer and microbe for effective treatment of basaltic regolith soil.

How accurately we can mimic the Martian soil down here on Earth is one of the many unanswered questions. The surface regolith is likely to be different when we get to the red planet.

The perchlorate salts would need to be washed out of the Martian soil by the desalinated water in order for the simulation to work.

Experiments outlined in the study give scientists and astronauts more promising options. The approaches described are easy to use and work well.

It would cost less to grow alfalfa on Mars than it would to grow it on Earth.

For long-term purposes, it is possible to treat in situ soil and water resources for farming on Mars.

The research is in a journal.