With soil provided by researchers at NASA closely resembling soil samples brought from Mars by Viking 1, researchers at Wageningen University have planted a variety of plant species in this soil.
The results are surprising with plants growing better in the Mars soil than Earth soil.
“I was very surprised when we found out plants grew better in the Mars soil than in the Earth soil. The Earth soil that we used was quite clean, a kind of river soil, relatively poor in minerals. But I didn’t expect the Mars soil to produce better plants.”
Wieger Wamelink, Ecologist, Wageningen University, Euronews 2013
