Author(s): Marissa Ockler
Mentor(s): Michael C. Rotter
Institution UVU
As humanity continues to explore space, we will likely need to use available resources to support the long-term occupation of celestial bodies. Growing plants using available soils such as that of a lunar nature and in as pure of its state as possible, would allow for more efficient colonization efforts on the moon. Our goal is to find the tolerance of potential growth for these plants in our lunar regolith. To better understand the limits of plants growing in lunar soils, we tested six different soil treatments of various lunar regolith simulant concentrations with Wisconsin Fast Plants. These various concentrations of lunar regolith simulants were created with coconut coir, creating a spectrum ranging from all lunar regolith to all coconut coir. Our Wisconsin Fast Plants were then planted to observe the time to germination, the number of flowers, the amount of seed set, and survivability till flowering. We expect to find a threshold that will allow us to find the minimum amount of coconut coir needed to grow these plants. Our results will hopefully suggest a starting point where we can more precisely identify the minimum growing conditions plants can withstand while living on the moon.