Comparative Study of Lettuce and Radish Grown Under Red and Blue Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) and White Fluorescent Lamps

Growing vegetable crops in space will be an essential part of sustaining astronauts during long-term missions. To drive photosynthesis, red and blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have attracted attention because of their efficiency, longevity, small size, and safety. In efforts to optimize crop production, there have also been recent interests in analyzing the subtle effects of green light on plant growth, and to determine if it serves as a source of growth enhancement or suppression. A comparative study was performed on two short cycle crops of lettuce (Outredgeous) and radish (Cherry Bomb) grown under two light treatments. The first treatment being red and blue LEDs, and the second treatment consisting of white fluorescent lamps which contain a portion of green light. In addition to comparing biomass production, physiological characterizations were conducted on how the light treatments influence morphology, water use, chlorophyll content, and the production of A TP within plant tissues

Ncera-101 Station Report from Kennedy Space Center, FL, USA (April 2017)

This is our annual report to the NCERA-101 meeting on the past year's activities related to controlled environment monitoring, operations and testing

Laser Spectroscopy for Atmospheric and Environmental Sensing

Lasers and laser spectroscopic techniques have been extensively used in several applications since their advent, and the subject has been reviewed extensively in the last several decades. This review is focused on three areas of laser spectroscopic applications in atmospheric and environmental sensing; namely laser-induced fluorescence (LIF), cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS), and photoluminescence (PL) techniques used in the detection of solids, liquids, aerosols, trace gases, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs)

Space Plants for Astronaut Consumption

Growing plants in space will be an essential part of sustaining astronauts during long-range missions. During the summer of 2017, three female NASA interns, have been engaged in research relevant to food production in space, and will present their projects to an all female program known as Girls in STEM camp. Ayla Grandpre, a senior from Rocky Mountain College, has performed data mining and analysis of crop growth results gathered through Fairchild Botanical Gardens program, Growing Beyond Earth. Ninety plants were downselected to three for testing in controlled environment chambers at KSC. Ayla has also managed an experiment testing a modified hydroponics known as PONDS, to grow mizuna mustard greens and red robin cherry tomatoes. Emma Boehm, a senior from the University of Minnesota, has investigated methods to sterilize seeds and analyzed the most common microbial communities on seed surfaces. She has tested a bleach fuming method and an ethanol treatment. Emma has also tested Tokyo bekana Chinese cabbage seeds from four commercial seed vendors to identity differences in germination and growth variability. Lastly, Payton Barnwell, a junior from Florida Polytechnic University has shown that light recipes provided by LEDs can alter the growth and nutrition of 'Outredgeous' lettuce, Chinese cabbage, and Mizuna. The results of her light quality experiments will provide light recipe recommendations for space crops that grown in the Advanced Plant Habitat currently aboard the International Space Station

Comparative Study of Lettuce and Radish Grown Under Red and Blue LEDs and White Fluorescent Lamps

Growing vegetable crops in space will be an essential part of sustaining astronauts during long-range missions. To drive photosynthesis, red and blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) have attracted attention because of their efficiency, longevity, small size, and safety. In efforts to optimize crop yield, there is also recent interest in analyzing the subtle effects of additional wavelengths on plant growth. For instance, since plants often look purplish gray under red and blue LEDs, the addition of green light allows easy recognition of disease and the assessment of plant health status. However, it is important to know if wavelengths outside the traditional red and blue wavebands have a direct effect on enhancing or hindering the mechanisms involved in plant growth. In this experiment, a comparative study was performed on two short cycle crops of red romaine lettuce (Lactuca sativa cv. "Outredgeous") and radish (Raphanus sativa cv. 'Cherry Bomb'), which were grown under two light treatments. The first treatment being red (630 nm) and blue (450 nm) LEDs alone, while the second treatment consisted of daylight tri-phosphor fluorescent lamps (CCT approximately 5000 K) at equal photosynthetic photon flux (PPF). The treatment effects were evaluated by measuring the fresh biomass produced, plant morphology and leaf dimensions, leaf chlorophyll content, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) within plant leaf/storage root tissues

Effects of elevated and super-elevated carbon dioxide on salad crops for space

ABSTRACTSpace habitats typically have elevated CO2 and NASA is considering growing leafy greens in space to supplement astronauts’ diets. Dragoon’ and ‘Outredgeous’ lettuce, ‘Amara’ mustard, ‘Extra Dwarf’ pak choi, shungiku, ‘Red Russian’ kale, ‘Toscano’ kale, and ‘Barese’ Swiss chard were grown for 4 weeks at 400, 1500, 3000, and 6000 ppm CO2. Shoot fresh mass at 28 days was greater for one of more elevated CO2 levels for all species/cultivars except ‘Toscano’ kale. Fresh mass varied by species/cultivar, with pak choi and ‘Dragoon’ lettuce showing the greatest yields. Super-elevated CO2 (6000 ppm) reduced shoot mass for both lettuce cvs. compared to 3000 ppm. Elevated CO2 increased K levels for most species/cultivars but decreased Mg for some species/cultivars. CO2 affected Vitamin B1 and Vitamin C content but had no effect on Vitamin K. ‘Toscano’ and ‘Red Russian’ kale, and Amara mustard had the highest mineral and vitamin content