Scientists harvest the first Antarctic vegetables

Scientists have managed to plant and harvest the first batch of vegetables grown in Antarctica. According to the Associated Press, the vegetables were grown in a greenhouse without the use of land, sunlight or pesticides.

The planting was carried out by researchers from the German station Neumayer Station III and is part of a project aimed at helping astronauts grow food on other planets.

Happy harvest

"It was special to have Antarctica's first fresh salad. It was as if we had harvested everything fresh from the garden, " station manager Bernhard Gropp said in a press release.

In total, the scientists harvested 3.6 kilograms of green leaves, 18 cucumbers and 70 radishes inside the high-tech greenhouse, while temperatures were down from minus 20 degrees Celsius on the icy continent.

The greenhouse challenges Antarctica's winter with state-of-the-art technology: pipes provide the necessary water, lighting is tailor-made, and filters maintain air quality to promote plant growth.

Extreme production

Large floor-mounted water tanks are filled with melted, filtered and purified ice. Then a “special nutrient solution” is added, and the mixture is automatically sprayed to the plants every 10 minutes, in an aeroponic process.

Regarding the oxygenation system, the team received carbon dioxide bottles from Germany to provide the plants with the ideal air. The air is then filtered through a closed-loop ultraviolet radiation system aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Speaking of ISS, NASA has conducted similar experiments inside it. However, according to Daniel Schubert of the German Aerospace Center, the objectives of the projects are slightly different: in Antarctica, researchers aim to produce a wide range of vegetables that could one day be grown on Mars or on the moon.