{"id":331649,"date":"2026-03-06T07:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T07:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331649\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T07:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T07:34:07","slug":"with-lunar-missions-looming-scientists-grow-chickpeas-in-moon-dirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/331649\/","title":{"rendered":"With lunar missions looming, scientists grow chickpeas in &#8216;moon dirt&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                                    WASHINGTON \u2013 <\/p>\n<p>If the idea of lunar hummus seems far-fetched, think again. Scientists working to cultivate the field of extraterrestrial agriculture have grown chickpeas in dirt made mostly of simulated lunar soil, a step toward enabling astronauts on long-term moon missions to produce their own food.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers said harvestable chickpeas were grown in soil mixtures composed primarily of &#8220;moon dirt&#8221; modeled after lunar samples retrieved during NASA&#8217;s Apollo missions more than half a century ago.<\/p>\n<p>Chickpeas of a variety called &#8220;Myles&#8221; were raised in a climate-controlled growth chamber at Texas A&amp;M University. Seeds were coated with beneficial fungi and planted in a mix of the simulated lunar soil, made by Florida-based company Space Resource Technologies, and a nutrient-rich substance called vermicompost produced when earthworms break down organic waste.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 If the idea of lunar hummus seems far-fetched, think again. Scientists working to cultivate the field&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[3810,426,61,60,82,247],"class_list":["post-331649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-agriculture","tag-food","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}