Who would think that a trip into space would turn the seeds into yielding giant fruits and vegetables?

China has been experimenting with space plants since the 1980s.

The seeds were sent into space, where they orbited the Earth for two weeks.

Once they returned they were cultivated in hothouses at the Guandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, producing giant fruits and vegetables, like 21lb tomatoes, nine-inch chillis, 15-stone pumpkins and enormous watermelons.

Chinese scientists believed that they could be the answer to the world’s food crisis.

They also claimed that the near zero gravity conditions - microgravity - have created high-yield rice and wheat plants, and tomatoes and peppers with harvests ten to 20 per cent greater than normal.

The most recent batch of 2,000 seeds was launched into orbit in 2006 on the Shijian 8 satellite. Afterwards they were cultivated and the best specimens selected for further breeding.

The results include two-foot cucumbers and 14lb aubergines.

China says its giant fruit and veg have already been sold to Japan, Thailand and Singapore. There has also been interest from European agricultural companies.

Researcher Lo Zhigang said: “Conventional agricultural development has taken us as far as we can go and demand for food from a growing population is endless.

“Space seeds offer the opportunity to grow fruit and vegetables bigger and faster.”

He admitted he and his colleagues could not explain why time in orbit causes the seeds to mutate. But they suspect exposure to the cosmic radiation that bombards spacecraft in orbit, as well as microgravity, could play a part.

“We don’t think there’s any threat to human health because the genes themselves do not mutate, just their sequence changes,” he said.

“With genetically-modified crops you have seen environmental problems because they have added genes that can damage other organisms.

“But with space seeds they don’t gain genes, they can only lose them.”

He also claims the Vitamin C content in some vegetables is nearly three times higher while that levels of zinc are also boosted.

Eight soybeans were flown to the International Space Station in 2002 and it was found that they had slightly higher levels of carbohydrates and less oil than ordinary seeds. But there was no sign of any genetic mutation.

If that is proven to be safe and successful will we need giant garden in our backyard?





Link to this post:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 10:24 am and is filed under Cool products, Kitchen & Housewares, Spot News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.