Recent Efforts to Advance Microgreens as a Space Crop

Microgreens are attracting attention as candidate crops for space because of their rapid growth along with the health benefits and flavors of mature crops in a fraction of the time. Since microgreens can be densely grown as 100s of seedlings in a small, concentrated area, this allows for intense flavors and endless combinations that could alleviate menu fatigue and improve variety for the crew diet. Currently, microgreens have not been cultivated in spaceflight, and to address that, recent progress was made to demonstrate microgreens can be grown safely in microgravity conditions without active watering. This seminar will showcase recent efforts demonstrating successful growth of Siberian kale microgreens using seed film technology deployed on a biodegradable gel-based substrate. Using simple 3D-printed hardware, crop growth was successfully tested under simulated microgravity on a random positioning machine (RPM) for 8 days without the input of water. To ensure food safety, various antifungal agents were tested by incorporating into the substrate to prevent microbial contamination. Harvested microgreen tissues were evaluated for pathogen plate counts, antifungal residues, and DNA sequencing of the seed-borne microbial community to understand antifungal effectiveness and impact on the microbial community. The results of all efforts were funded by NASA BPS, STMD, and HRP, and will be discussed.