The same traits that make duckweed a useful crop on Earth — fast growth, a high-protein edible biomass, efficient use of water and nutrients, and a compact, simple body plan — also make it a promising candidate for growing food in space and other closed, controlled environments.
The collection is managed by the Mortimer and Gilliham labs, part of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space (P4S). P4S develops plants and plant-based systems to support long-duration space exploration while feeding back into sustainable agriculture on Earth — and duckweed, an edible whole-plant crop that grows on water, fits that brief well.
The interest isn't only theoretical. In November 2023, fresh Wolffia globosa was grown and eaten aboard the International Space Station for the first time, using a compact cultivation module — an early demonstration that duckweed can be produced and consumed in orbit.
Further reading
- Mortimer & Gilliham (2022) SpaceHort: redesigning plants to support space exploration and on-Earth sustainability. Current Opinion in Biotechnology. doi
- Morgan, Diab, Gilliham & Mortimer (2024) Green horizons: how plant synthetic biology can enable space exploration and drive on-Earth sustainability. Current Opinion in Biotechnology. doi
- Plants for Space — the ARC Centre of Excellence.
This is a starting point — there's plenty more the ACDC could add here about its own space-related work. Suggestions welcome.