One granite leap for mankind
"Moon and Northern Lights over lake/loch"
If humankind is to colonise the Moon, soil scientists of the future won鈥檛 need to travel quarter of a million miles to learn how to grow crops on the lunar surface 鈥� they just need to go to Aberdeen.
As the world celebrates this weekend (20-21 July) the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11鈥檚 successful landing, researchers at Scotland鈥檚 Rural College are highlighting the giant leaps made during a long-running pH experiment at its Craibstone campus, which could provide vital data for future Moon missions.
pH is a numerical scale describing a solution鈥檚 acidity or alkalinity, with a pH of 7 in soil considered neutral. An acid soil has a pH less than 7 and an alkaline soil has a pH above 7.
Established in 1961 鈥� the same year President John F Kennedy told Congress that the US should commit itself to 鈥渓anding a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth鈥� 鈥� data from 抖阴直播鈥檚 experiment has helped generations of farmers and students to understand the impact of acidity/alkalinity on crop yield.
Each crop has an optimum pH range and even a small difference in pH above or below that can significantly reduce yield. The experiment also shows how different weeds thrive at certain pHs.
Professor Christine Watson points out that, because the lunar surface may be very alkaline, the high pH would be one of the major challenges to crop growth.
She said: 鈥淚t鈥檚 fair to say that growing anything on the Moon would pose a bit of a challenge! The surface of the Moon is made up of a very primitive kind of soil which is a bit like volcanic dust on Earth. In terrestrial soils, rocks get weathered by water which doesn鈥檛 happen on the Moon.
鈥淎lso, the soils on the Moon contain no organic matter, microorganisms or soil animals. This means that lunar soils don鈥檛 have structure created by the soil life and organic matter and there is very little in the way of nutrients cycling around.
鈥淟eaving the lack of atmosphere aside for a moment, you could take the lunar 鈥榮oil鈥� as a basic substrate for plant growth and, if you planted seeds and gave them water and nutrients, they would grow.
鈥淭here are likely to be toxic elements in the rocky materials so we鈥檇 need to know about that too. If people are to live on the Moon one day, our soil scientist of the future would need all the skills of a good soil scientist here on Earth 鈥� knowing about things like mineralogy and soil ecology. And, if they wanted to know more about pH, then Aberdeen is probably the best place in the universe to go.鈥�
Posted by 抖阴直播 on 19/07/2019
