Lunar astronauts might have to get their overalls ready, because the Moon could be the next great frontier for agriculture. The European Space Agency and Norwegian lunar agriculture company Solsys Mining have teamed up on a project to study how lunar soil could be used to produce fertilizer.

The project builds upon prior research demonstrating that plants can grow in lunar soil, albeit not very well. One of the main challenges is that lunar regolith lacks certain amounts of nitrogen compounds—a key ingredient in soil that allows flora to flourish. Another issue is that lunar soil gets tightly compact when wet, which creates trouble for plants trying to put down healthy and strong roots.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/landlord2213:

Lunar astronauts might have to get their overalls ready, because the Moon could be the next great frontier for agriculture. The European Space Agency and Norwegian lunar agriculture company Solsys Mining have teamed up on a project to study how lunar soil could be used to produce fertilizer.

The project builds upon prior research demonstrating that plants can grow in lunar soil, albeit not very well. One of the main challenges is that lunar regolith lacks certain amounts of nitrogen compounds—a key ingredient in soil that allows flora to flourish. Another issue is that lunar soil gets tightly compact when wet, which creates trouble for plants trying to put down healthy and strong roots.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/119yvoy/ingenious_technique_could_make_moon_farming/j9opwu8/

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So what’s the ingenious technique?

Basically cheating by not growing it in the soil.

Using water they can take some of the nutrients out of the ground, then pipe that to a hydroponics greenhouse where they grow without soil.

🎉🎉 space weed 🎉🎉 now with 10% extra alien powers.. 100% authenticity grown on the moon.

The key is going to be having microbes that can fix the nitrogen utilizing crushed lunar regolith as a substrate. Millions of people have been growing using hydroponics, but you have to add nutrient, and that will become a problem without there being as much available nitrogen on the moon.

so vertical farm but on the moon, such ingeniosity

regular farming seem difficult as radiation and the lack of atmosphere (asteroid impact) prevent farming at ground level

that's why vertical farming cost more than regular farming on earth but on the moon? seem mandatory

Would making a farm out of the moon make it habitable for terrestrial life, should this take off?