The Vegetables Of The Future?

The Guandong Academy of Agricultural Sciences in China believes it has found a way to end World hunger - By growing super-sized vegetables. The only catch is that in order to grow these huge vegetables, the seeds have to be sent to Space for a two-week orbit around the Earth.

Researchers in China have been actively experimenting with Space Plants since the early 1980's. This latest batch of humungous vegetables was grown in a hothouse at the Guandong Academy from a batch of seeds that were launched into space in 2006 on the Shijian 8 satellite.

The results, as you can see from the pictures are very impressive. 2ft long cucumbers, 210 lb pumpkins and 21lb tomatoes are just some of the examples of the harvest. In addition to being large, these vegetables also grow much faster and have a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals, compared to normal vegetables.

The researchers are not sure why sending the seeds to space yield such giant produce. They believe that the near-zero gravity causes the sequence pattern in the seed to change, which then results in larger fruits and vegetables.

While some European Agriculture companies are interested in this new farming technique, researchers in North America are a little skeptical. NASA researchers have performed similar experiments in the past and believe that the cost of sending the seeds into Space, outweighs the benefits.

Source: Daily Mail, Trendhunter Magazine