Lunar soil, is it good for plants?

In message , "Bill
Carson "
writes
I been pondering what the grey moon soil is really like and whether
you can simply "just add water" to make it suitable for plants!
Seriously, does the soil on the moon need to have organic nutrients to
support plants or can you turn lunar soil into growing soil just by
adding water?

You could argue the same for soil on Mars and the asteroids.

BC

After the Apollo landings they tried growing seeds in a "soil" sample
and I gather it was successful. There's nothing poisonous in it.
If current theory is right, that might not be true of Martian soil,
which may be highly oxidising.
--
What have they got to hide? Release the Beagle 2 report.
Remove spam and invalid from address to reply.

(Bill Carson ) wrote in message . com...
I been pondering what the grey moon soil is really like and whether
you can simply "just add water" to make it suitable for plants!
Seriously, does the soil on the moon need to have organic nutrients to
support plants or can you turn lunar soil into growing soil just by
adding water?

You could argue the same for soil on Mars and the asteroids.

BC

Hi Bill,
I once tried a few "fantasy" experiments myself trying to grow some
vegetables under the electric light... in a true spirit of
astroculture "simulations" of course! Real lunar or extra-terrestrial
soil was obviously priced at a premium and hard to come by, so I had
to settle for the stuff found here on Earth:-

http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/astroculture.html

You might find the 1970s movie "Silent Running" of some inspiration,
as Bruce Dern was doing similar growings onboard his space freighter
Valley Forge...
I am assuming you are actually going to start a "sky farming" project
as such of course!

Abdul Ahad
"What do you get when you cross Astronomy with Geometry?"
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/astrometry.html

(Abdul Ahad) wrote in message . com...
(Bill Carson ) wrote in message . com...
I been pondering what the grey moon soil is really like and whether
you can simply "just add water" to make it suitable for plants!
Seriously, does the soil on the moon need to have organic nutrients to
support plants or can you turn lunar soil into growing soil just by
adding water?

You could argue the same for soil on Mars and the asteroids.

BC

Hi Bill,
I once tried a few "fantasy" experiments myself trying to grow some
vegetables under the electric light... in a true spirit of
astroculture "simulations" of course! Real lunar or extra-terrestrial
soil was obviously priced at a premium and hard to come by, so I had
to settle for the stuff found here on Earth:-

http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/astroculture.html

You might find the 1970s movie "Silent Running" of some inspiration,
as Bruce Dern was doing similar growings onboard his space freighter
Valley Forge...
I am assuming you are actually going to start a "sky farming" project
as such of course!

Abdul Ahad
"What do you get when you cross Astronomy with Geometry?"
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/astrometry.html

Mines is just thought experiments right now but thanx anyhow.

BTW your stuff on binary stars at-
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagent/astrometry.html

is quite good. I might check out some star colors of binaries myself
once the sky clears.

Bill C

Brilliant work Bill. I feel inspired. I just started
gardening this year, got myself a garden very close
to Martian conditions... near Uppsala, Sweden.

Coincidentally, I am growing Mexican koriander. Please consider
this is also important for Mexican foods, like Salsa Verde. My
land is 10x100 meters and I am putting up a shelter and greenhouse.
My background is molecular medicine, so I have some biology
training. We were just discussing amongst some of the other
gardeners there, some more serious science. You have revitalized
my interests.

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible. The extent of this
could depend on thing like temperature, freeze-thaw cycles, particle
size, moisture content, pH, etc.

I shall be interested to see how your work progresses...

Dominic-Luc Webb

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible.

My guess would be that power station fly-ash might make a good analogue.

Steve

Hi,

I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Dominic


On Mon, 5 Jul 2004, Steve Taylor wrote:

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible.

My guess would be that power station fly-ash might make a good analogue.

Steve

Hi,

I am not sure what fly-ash is chemically. What kind of
power station would have this?

Dominic


On Mon, 5 Jul 2004, Steve Taylor wrote:

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible.

My guess would be that power station fly-ash might make a good analogue.

Steve

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote:

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible.

My guess would be that power station fly-ash might make a good analogue.

Steve

Dominic-Luc Webb wrote in message ...
Brilliant work Bill. I feel inspired. I just started
gardening this year, got myself a garden very close
to Martian conditions... near Uppsala, Sweden.

Coincidentally, I am growing Mexican koriander. Please consider
this is also important for Mexican foods, like Salsa Verde. My
land is 10x100 meters and I am putting up a shelter and greenhouse.
My background is molecular medicine, so I have some biology
training. We were just discussing amongst some of the other
gardeners there, some more serious science. You have revitalized
my interests.

I would like to find out what a lunar soil would consist of,
including particle sizes. I am sure it will work fine as a supporting
substrate, but some heavier metals, if present, could accumulate
into leaves and fruits rendering them inedible. The extent of this
could depend on thing like temperature, freeze-thaw cycles, particle
size, moisture content, pH, etc.

I shall be interested to see how your work progresses...

Dominic-Luc Webb

There must be some lunar soil in the science lab of a university near
you that could shed light on some of these Q's. A Google search is
another obvious avenue.

I just measured the interior cubic volume of space inside my
astroculture "shed" described he-
http://uk.geocities.com/aa_spaceagen...oculture2.html

and its approx. 338 cubic feet.
With your molecular medicine background would you happen to have any
idea as to how much plant foliage would be required to fill this
volume of space with oxygen to the tune of "1 atmosphere" (if that's
the right way to put it)? I suppose that would also depend on the
volume of CO2 provided for intake and how good the cycle was working.

Does the amount of oxygen produced by a plant generally depend on the
surface area of its leaves and are some plants better than others in
their oxygen outputs? Is there a 'best plant' for oxygen output and
does it all depend on temperatures, etc?
These are some of the Q's I was hoping to get answers to using simple
"hands on" experiments in the facility described on my web page.
NASA research into wheat and soy bean experiments conducted aboard the
ISS must have some of these answers... I just don't know where they
are.

cheers
Abdul Ahad

and its approx. 338 cubic feet.
With your molecular medicine background would you happen to have any
idea as to how much plant foliage would be required to fill this
volume of space with oxygen to the tune of "1 atmosphere" (if that's
the right way to put it)? I suppose that would also depend on the
volume of CO2 provided for intake and how good the cycle was working.

I am not a plant physiologist, but I presume the plants will also
generate CO2 during mitochondrial metabolism. The number of atmospheres
depends on what the starting pressure was. I once experimented with
the output from yeast fermentation (CO2) as a source of CO2 to
grow green algae.



Does the amount of oxygen produced by a plant generally depend on the
surface area of its leaves and are some plants better than others in
their oxygen outputs?

I think it depends on the number of pores and their regulation,
as by hormones. This is covered in great detail in my plant
physiology textbooks at home. I do not work with this, but do have
some books.



Is there a 'best plant' for oxygen output and
does it all depend on temperatures, etc?

The Russians experimented very heavily with algae (maybe
the best of all) and I believe some photosynthetic bacteria.
I think the bacteria where interesting because there was a
mechanism to also extract hydrogen which could be used as
a fuel.


These are some of the Q's I was hoping to get answers to using simple
"hands on" experiments in the facility described on my web page.
NASA research into wheat and soy bean experiments conducted aboard the
ISS must have some of these answers... I just don't know where they
are.


The NASA research on the Space Shuttle has been less than
impressive, given the massive budgets. There is (was) a group
next door in Norway that was working on chambers for such
experiments, and I once had some contact with them about
this. I think the Norwegian group was very progressive and I
should probably try and get in touch with them to see what
they are up to these days...

Dominic