Watch the talks:

Engineering Crops for Extraterrestrial Environments 

Zero-Discharge No-till Farming in Space: The Ultimate in Agriculture 

Agriculture is a cycle of using energy, resources, and specific conditions to grow food. The Earth provides a continuous supply of life-sustaining elements through oceans, atmosphere, vast ecosystems, and consistent schedules that provide access to and breaks from sunlight. Trying to grow food in space strips away the environment and resources we are familiar with and requires ingenuity. With no resupply missions, no natural atmospheric shielding, and no room for inefficiency, every input must be carefully chosen and resources recycled.  

Dr. Bruce Bugbee (Professor of Crop Physiology, Apogee Instruments President) presented two talks highlighting 40 years of research funded by NASA about how to grow food in fully closed regenerative systems designed for space. These systems rethink traditional agricultural constraints. Water and nutrients are continuously recovered and reused. Carbon dioxide levels are intentionally elevated to push photosynthesis beyond typical field limits. Genetic selection focuses on improving harvest index and sink strength, reducing waste biomass, and simplifying recycling in tightly managed ecosystems.  

This research has addressed growing plants indoors under electric lighting, often in stacked systems designed to maximize output per unit volume. This has driven the development of ultra-compact, high-yield cultivars—beginning with the release of Apogee wheat in the 1990s and continuing today with super-dwarf varieties of additional crops.  

The tools, genetics, and environmental control strategies developed for extraterrestrial food production are shaping the future of controlled environment agriculture here on Earth, too. Watch these talks to explore how research for the most extreme growing environments is redefining what’s possible in agriculture.