Microbial Magic Turns Moon Rock into Fertile Soil

Header image: Nicotiana benthamiana seedlings growing in simulated lunar soil in a laboratory at the China Agricultural University in Beijing. Image credit: Yitong Xia via REUTERS. 

If we’re going back to the Moon – to stay this time – then there are a number of challenges we need to overcome. One of the most pressing is how to feed a population of people beyond Low Earth Orbit. Researchers are exploring different ways to grow food on the Moon, from algae bioreactors to vertical farms. To replicate Earth agriculture, we’d need to turn lunar regolith – basically just crushed rock – into healthy soil. Recently, researchers working with simulated lunar regolith (we don’t have much real Moon rock to play with!) found that adding bacteria to the mix makes more of the nutrient phosphate available to plants.

“Considering the huge scientific and economic potential of the Moon, we will need to set up crewed lunar bases in the future. But how can we provide food, oxygen and water for the crew members? Of course we can carry them to the Moon by rockets, but that is economically unsustainable. A greenhouse for plant cultivation on the Moon could greatly reduce the need of Earth-moon transportation.”

A team of agronomists and biotechnicians at China Agricultural University used samples of volcanic material from the Changbai mountains of China’s Jilin Province as their simulated regolith and added three types of bacteria: Pseudomonas fluorescens, Bacillus megaterium and Bacillus mucilaginosus.

Tests on their pseudo-soil showed that all three types of bacteria had made it more acidic, allowing insoluble phosphate-containing minerals in the soil to dissolve and become useful to plants. (Tests with other bacteria did not produce the same