Sowing seeds in space to adapt to climate change

Plants naturally adapt to thrive in challenging environments. Spontaneous natural mutations create new traits, such as drought tolerance and disease resistance, that can help plants thrive.

Scientists sow seeds in space to adapt to climate change 1 — Scientists study methods of sowing seeds in space to adapt to climate change. Photo: CNN

However, agriculture is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of changing climatic conditions, and climate change in particular poses major challenges for agriculture. And now scientists are turning to the vastness of space to find solutions to these challenges.

In 2022, joint laboratories of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) sent seeds on a trip to the International Space Station (ISS).

The program's goal is to create genetic mutations in seeds through exposure to space radiation and microgravity, which could help develop resilient crops capable of thriving in the face of the escalating climate crisis.

Seeds of a cereal and a cress variety spent several months on the ISS before being returned to Earth for analysis this April. The screening process will begin to identify favorable traits in the mutant seeds.

Shoba Sivasankar, head of the Plant Genetics and Breeding Section of the Joint FAO/IAEA Centre for Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture, explains that scientists can artificially induce plant mutations on Earth using gamma rays and X-rays.

However, the space environment, which provides a broader spectrum of radiation and extremes such as microgravity and temperature fluctuations, is likely to induce other genetic changes more rapidly than those typically observed with terrestrial radiation sources.

“In space, the stress that an organism experiences is going to be at its highest level and far beyond anything that we can actually simulate on Earth,” Sivasankar explains. She adds that radiation outside the ISS can be “hundreds of times higher” than natural radiation that might be present on Earth.

By selectively breeding plants grown from mutant seeds, Sivasankar and her team hope to create new crop varieties.

Scientists have been sending seeds into space for decades. China has used space radiation to induce genetic mutations in crops since the 1980s, exposing seeds to cosmic radiation via satellites and high-altitude balloons, which is believed to have facilitated the production of giant sweet peppers and improved the quality of wheat and rice.

It is the hope of finding solutions to agriculture on Earth that is motivating Sivasankar, and the IAEA says initial results from their research could emerge later this year.

“I feel really hopeful about the future of food security, because technology is at the forefront,” she says. “But food security is not just about genetics – we need a combination of all technologies and everyone needs to collaborate and work together.”

Mai Anh (according to CNN)

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