Following a breakthrough where US researchers grew plants in lunar soil returned by the Apollo missions last May, Australian scientists now aim to perform the same feat directly on the Moon’s surface.
A team from Queensland University of Technology in Australia announced an initiative titled Growing plants on the moon by 2025, signaling a step toward enabling a future lunar settlement. The scientists describe a mission in which seeds would ride aboard the Bereshit 2 spacecraft, an Israeli lunar mission scheduled for about three years from now.
Upon landing, the seeds would be placed in a sealed chamber and monitored from Earth to observe germination and growth patterns.
Selections would favor plant varieties known for vigor under extreme conditions and rapid germination, the researchers note. One option discussed is the Australian resurrection grass, a species capable of surviving extended dry spells in a dormant state.
“The project marks the first step toward cultivating plants for food, medicine, and oxygen that are essential for sustaining human life on the Moon”, the research team stated. (Source: UF/IFAS) Caitlin Byrt, associate professor at the Australian National University in Canberra, explained that the research also addresses food security amid climate uncertainties.
Plants growing on lunar soil was highlighted visually in a recent photograph captioned, “Plants growing on land from the Moon last May.”
“If you can establish a system for growing plants on the Moon, you can adapt that system to hostile environments on Earth”, Byrt remarked. The Lunaria One organization leads the project, involving researchers from Australia and Israel. (Source: Lunaria One)
A recent precedent for lunar planting
It is not the first time crops have been tested on the Moon. In May, researchers from the University of Florida in the United States reported success in germinating and growing plants using lunar soil brought back by Apollo missions, marking a historic milestone for agricultural experiments beyond Earth. (Source: UF/IFAS) A study published in Communications Biology described how plants sprout and develop in lunar regolith, a material starkly different from Earth soil, and how plant biology responds to that unique substrate.
This work represents a foundational step toward growing food and producing oxygen during future Moon missions. The Artemis program intensifies the focus on understanding plant growth in space. (Source: UF/IFAS) Rob Ferl, a co-author and distinguished professor of horticultural sciences at UF/IFAS, emphasized the need to learn more about growing crops in space environments.
Paul and Ferl are widely recognized as leaders in space botany, having conducted experiments on space shuttles, the International Space Station, and suborbital flights via UF’s Space Facility Laboratory.
“A Moon-based hub could support longer space missions, so leveraging the land already on the Moon to grow plants makes sense”, Ferl said. The questions then become: how do plants react to lunar soil, which defies their evolutionary history? What would a Moon greenhouse look like, and could there be moon farmers?
To begin answering these questions, Ferl and Paul designed a straightforward experiment: sow seeds in lunar soil, add water, nutrients, and light, and observe the outcomes.
It started with twelve grams of lunar soil
Carrying only about 12 grams of lunar soil, an extremely limited quantity, the team borrowed samples from NASA that were collected during Apollo missions 11, 12, and 17. Over more than a decade, Paul and Ferl sought opportunities to work with lunar regolith and repeatedly applied for access to this material.
That tiny amount of soil carried enormous scientific and historical weight, necessitating a carefully designed, small-scale study. The moon garden experiment used small, thimble-sized wells in plastic pots commonly used for plant culture, each well acting as a miniature planter. When filled, each pot contained roughly one gram of lunar soil. The scientists moistened this soil with a nutrient solution and sowed a handful of Arabidopsis seeds, a model plant widely used in genetics due to its fully mapped genome.
Initial expectations were modest; the seeds had questions to answer. Yet many of them germinated, surprising the researchers. Paul recalled the moment with a sense of astonishment, noting that lunar soils did not disrupt the hormonal signals that trigger germination. This observation opened new avenues for understanding plant development in extraterrestrial soils. (Source: UF/IFAS)
What follows is a glimpse into a field that blends space exploration with botany, showing how plants may eventually thrive beyond Earth, and how Earthly gardens could inform experiments on the Moon. (Source: UF/IFAS)
Note: research in this area continues to evolve as scientists seek practical methods for growing crops in lunar environments and evaluating implications for long-term human presence on the Moon. (Source: UF/IFAS)