Tomatoes grow in an LED-lighted box, similar to what astronauts use to grow lettuce on the International Space Station, at at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Miami on April 25, 2018.In these challenging times, the need for reliable local reporting has never been greater. Put a value on the impact of our year-round coverage. Help us continue to highlight LA stories, hold the powerful accountable, and amplify community voices. Your support keeps our reporting free for all to use.
For over 60 years, the laboratory has studied whether nuclear technologies can be used to breed new and more resilient varieties of crops, and the seeds from the space capsule were its newest venture. They had spent nearly five months in low Earth orbit, exposed to cosmic radiation, extreme temperatures, and low gravity, which altered their DNA in unpredictable but potentially beneficial ways.
Scientist Shoba Sivasankar, right, receives a package of seeds that journeyed from the International Space Station to the FAO/IAEA Plant Breeding and Genetics Laboratory in Seibersdorf, Austria, in 2023..
Two types of seeds were picked for the experiment: arabidopsis, a weed that, while usually not edible, is a “model species” with a well-studied genome that researchers can quickly examine for the most obvious genetic changes and useful traits, and sorghum, a dryland crop that’s consumed byaround the world and is therefore useful from a food security standpoint, Mathur said.
Experiments like these carry risks, Mohanta pointed out. Mutant DNA could potentially escape and contaminate wild species or other crops through cross-pollination, which could pose a threat to biodiversity or human health if the mutations are harmful in any way — a small possibility, but one that plant breeders, or GMOs, also face. One genetically modified variety of corn, for example, was suspected of unintentionally introducing allergens into the U.S.
Mutation breeding “has been the cornerstone of agriculture for a long, long time,” Mathur said. “Agriculture is all about harnessing mutations … and mutation is very much a part of our evolutionary process.”