Frigid Farming

Antarctic Greenhouse Yields First Crop

Scientists at Germany’s Neumayer Station III, in Antarctica, have harvested their first crop of vegetables grown without soil, daylight or pesticides as part of a project designed to help astronauts cultivate fresh food on other planets. They picked about eight pounds of salad greens, 18 cucumbers and 70 radishes grown inside a high-tech greenhouse as outside temperatures dropped to minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit. NASA has successfully grown greens on the International Space Station, but the Antarctic project aims to produce a wider range of vegetables that might one day be grown on the moon or on Mars.
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