UF’s Wagner Vendrame is sending four types of seeds to the International Space Station to study how spaceflight affects plant genetics and resilience. The goal is to understand how to grow plants in space and to possible gain insights into how to artificially adapt seeds to harsh conditions so they can better endure scarcity and intense weather on Earth.?
“Space is the ultimate high-stress environment for plants. On Earth, the extreme environments … include heat waves, drought and hard freezes,” says Vendrame. “This could be a way of generating more crops that are resilient to those kinds of stressors.”?Genetic testing of the space plants compared to plants grown in Vendrame’s lab will allow the team to better understand how specific plants change when they go through the stress of microgravity and Earth reentry.?
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