In a Mars situation when even natural drainage will be unavailable (percolating water will be collected at the bottom of the greenhouse and sent for processing even in soil based system, unless you want to turn your greenhouse into a pond) the question is when, what and how long? Do you throw away a substrate every five years max and start all over, or do you keep the same soil and nurture in a very closed environment? How often would you steam disinfect soil for the pathogens? You will need to fertigate anyway. The Netherlands pioneered commercial hydroponics in the 1960 because greenhouse soils that had been grown with the same crops for over a century had too many plant protection issues (pests, diseases) to grow the same crops there. Ecosystem services that you get from the soil are simply not available on Mars early on, and there is the question of soil exhaustion. Hydroponics vs soil is a question that can only be answered on Mars. In any case, irrespective of the production system some 80% of the biomass in a Mars colony will be in the food growing system.ĥ. Be aware that along with CO2 you will need the other materials to grow this and if you do not recycle it through say composting you will need to add it chemically. Crops also produce stover etc, food that is not directly edible to humans but can have other uses such as animal feed, ethanol feedstock, biomaterial for construction etc. We will more likely need to input CO2 from the atmosphere rather than have a completely closed system. For algae it is even better, closer to 100% but it is untested if it is possible to have balanced nutrition based exclusively on algae based food. For major field crops (think wheat, soybeans etc) edible biomass is closer to 20% of all plant biomass. Will it be better on Mars to have skyscraper style habitats as opposed to horizontal habitats? My sense is that Mars won't be Manhattan, but I understand if you need to use the whole volumeĤ. Vertical farming is very useful if you are horizontally constrained. For vegetables the moisture content is not as standardized as in field crops because they usually survive and travel lessģ. I simply had to adapt between the two using the dry mass, but that was logistics. In my dissertation I used soil yield estimates whose output was one specific moisture content from crops and then a USDA table which used another moisture content. Crop productivity is measured in a specific standardized moisture content which varies per crop. The issue on earth is economics, hydroponics go for high economic yield cropsĢ. You can fully produce balanced nutrition based on hydroponics. I have been out for a bit so here go a few comments:ġ.
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