The new method helps harvest 6 wheat crops a year

Scientists have developed new methods to increase the productivity and quality of crops from NASA's research techniques.

Scientists at the University of Sydney, University of Queensland and John Innes Center developed new research-based methods that NASA tested more than 10 years ago to produce food in space missions, New Atlas on Monday. / 1 reported. New growth acceleration method helps plants grow many times faster and give higher productivity.

Plants grow fast in greenhouses thanks to new methods.(Photo: New Atlas).

The team planted several greenhouse plants under continuous LED operation , emitting light at a certain wavelength to promote photosynthesis. They harvested six wheat crops, chickpeas, barley and four canola crops in just one year. Previously, people only cultivated two or three crops in a greenhouse and a crop outside the normal field.

The technique is also effective for peanuts, amaranth, lentils, and hopes to work with sunflowers, peppers and beets, the team said.

"We are using high pressure sodium vapor lamps in greenhouses. Our research shows that it is possible to grow wheat and barley with a density of about 900 trees per square meter, combined with LED lighting, to bring opportunities for scaling up for industrial applications, " said Lee Hickey, co-author of the study.

New methods not only increase productivity but also create good quality crops. The team compared traits such as the number of shoots and seeds per tree with normal plants in the greenhouse and found that plants grown by accelerated growth often outperform. In the past, there were some studies that also helped plants grow at the same speed, but creating good quality trees is very difficult.

The lighting system helps plants grow fast and produce high productivity.(Photo: New Atlas).

Growth acceleration method is not used. However, the research team believes that combining this technology has great potential.

"Our research shows that genetically modified technology is compatible with growth acceleration. I believe that the successful combination of growth with other technologies such as CRISPR gene editing will be a great achievement. which this method brings , " Hickey said.

Growth acceleration method is attracting interest from some agricultural companies in the world. Dr. Brande Wulff at John Innes Center, author of the study, hopes this method will be widely applied in the next 10 years.