11/3/2023 0 Comments Fao nasa meaning![]() The research could offer insights into the adaptive capabilities of plants in extreme environments, and help us understand how crops could potentially be grown off-Earth for long-duration space missions. ![]() The MSU scientists are exploring the effect of extraterrestrial conditions on plant amino acids – the building block of proteins – and evaluating how that impacts plant growth and development. ![]() Many different varieties of seed have been aboard the International Space Station, while researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) are currently experimenting with the cultivation of seeds that were sent on a journey around the moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program. China has been using space radiation to induce genetic mutation in crops since the 1980s, exposing seeds to cosmic radiation via satellites and high-altitude balloons, which reportedly facilitated the production of giant sweet pepper s and improvements in wheat and rice. “And then there is climate change resilience – for example resistance to increasing incidence of diseases, tolerance of climate phenomenon such as drought, or high heat, and increasing salinity of the soil because of saltwater intrusion or irrigation and evaporation.”įor decades scientists have been sending seeds to space. “Firstly, we are working on improving crop yields and productivity of crops such as grains, legumes, roots and tubers – for example, cassava and sweet potato,” she says. Laffan/IAEAīy selectively breeding plants grown from the mutated seeds, Sivasankar and her team hope to create new crop strains. Shoba Sivasankar examines sorghum seeds that spent around five months at the International Space Station. She adds that the radiation outside the ISS could be “more than a hundredfold higher” than the natural radiation possible on Earth. “In space, the stress that will be encountered by an organism would be at the highest level and beyond anything that we can actually simulate on Earth,” explains Sivasankar. However, the space environment, which offers a broader spectrum of radiation and additional extremes like microgravity and temperature fluctuations, has the potential to induce genetic alterations that differ from, or are induced much quicker than, those typically observed using terrestrial radiation sources. Shoba Sivasankar, head of Plant Breeding and Genetics for the joint FAO and IAEA Center of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, explains that scientists are able to artificially induce plant mutations on Earth using gamma rays and X-rays. Now screening will begin to identify favorable traits in the mutated seeds. Seeds of a cereal grain called sorghum, and a type of cress called Arabidopsis, spent several months on the ISS before they were returned to Earth this April for analysis. The objective: to induce genetic mutations in the seeds through exposure to cosmic radiation and microgravity, that could help develop resilient crops capable of thriving in the face of the escalating climate crisis. In 2022, the joint laboratories of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) sent seeds on a trip to the International Space Station (ISS). ![]() Now, scientists are turning to the vastness of space for solutions. But the Earth’s climate is changing faster than plants can naturally evolve, meaning that many of the plants we rely on for food are under threat.Īgriculture is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of changing climate conditions and although changes to temperature, rainfall patterns, and frost might extend a growing season or enable the cultivation of different crops, climate change also introduces major challenges for farming. Spontaneous natural mutations produce new traits, such as drought tolerance and disease resistance, which can help the plant to thrive. Plants naturally adapt to grow in challenging environments.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |