Thursday, March 4, 2010

Azolla as a Dish of Space Diet for Habitation on Mars

For habitation on extraterrestrial planets, such as moon and Mars, bio-regenerative agricultural system is requested to support human life.

A combination of rice, soybean, sweet potato, green-yellow vegetable, silkworm pupa, loach and azolla was found to be an appropriate diet that fulfills the human nutritional requirements. Rice and aquatic fern azolla will be co-cultured in rice paddies in order to enhance the productivity high under limited resources available for it.

Azolla is an effective green manure, and suppresses germination and growth of weeds by covering the water surface.
Co-culture of fish or water birds helps in converting azolla and weed to animal meat, and upgrading biomass to edible food. Action/movement of fish or birds in rice paddies brings other positive effects on rice production as well.

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