“Growing Rice on Mars: Research Finds Genetically Modified Varieties Can Survive Martian Soil Challenges”

SPACE — Andy Weir’s 2011 bestseller, ‘The Martian’, chronicles the efforts of botanist Mark Watney to grow food on Mars after he was stranded there. While Watney’s initial efforts focused on growing potatoes, new research has a better option, growing rice.

The research was presented at the 54th Conference on Lunar and Planetary Sciences by a team of interdisciplinary researchers from U of A. The outline of the research abstract reads: Rice Can Grow and Survive in Mars Regolith with Overcoming Challenges Through Controlling Stress Genes.” One of the biggest challenges to growing on Mars is the presence of perchlorate salts which have been detected in the planet’s soil and are generally considered toxic to plants.

The team was able to simulate Martian regolith (soil) using basalt-rich soil extracted from the Mojave Desert, called the Mojave Mars Simulant (MMS), which was developed by scientists from NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The team then planted three varieties of rice, including one wild-type and two strains whose genes were engineered with genetic mutations that allowed them to better respond to stresses, such as drought, lack of sugar, or salinity.

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This variety is grown in MMS as well as regular potting mixes and a mix of the two. While plants can grow in the Mars simulation, they don’t thrive in the same way as those grown in potting soil and a mixture of the two. Subsequently, experiments replaced a quarter of the simulated Mars soil with potting soil and resulted in better development.

The team also experimented with the amount of perchlorate in the soil, finding that 3 grams of perchlorate per kilogram of resistant was the no-growth threshold. Meanwhile, the mutant strain can still root at 1 gram per kilogram.

Their findings suggest that there may be a way forward for genetically modified rice to grow in Martian soil. Next steps will include experimenting with a newer Martian soil simulation called the Mars Global Simulant, as well as other rice lines that have increased tolerance to higher salt concentrations.

An important part of this research will be determining the extent to which perchlorate can be absorbed by plants from the soil. Going further afield, the researchers want to put rice in a closed habitat chamber and place it in a Mars simulation chamber that replicates the temperature and atmosphere of the red planet.

Whether humans will colonize Mars or not, the team’s research can be applied to Earth. The abstract’s second author, Abhilash Ramachandran, a post-doctoral fellow at the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, noted he had spoken with an Australian researcher from an area with high salinity soil, and saw their work as a potential way. “We can use Earth as a terrestrial analog before seeds are sent to Mars,” he said.

The abstract’s first author, Peter James Gann, a doctoral student in cell and molecular biology, said the project started when he met Ramachandran for coffee at the student union. “He was new here at university, and we shared the things we do in our respective labs. Since he works in planetary science, and I specialize in cell and molecular biology, we decided to give plants a try,” he said.

These researchers have been joined by co-author Yheni Dwiningsih, a postdoctoral fellow in plant science; Dominic Dharwadker, an undergraduate student at Honors College; and Vibha Srivastava, a professor in the Department of Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences. All the names above have a cooperation agreement with the U of A System Division of Agriculture. Source: Phys.org