Appendix D - Improved drought tolerance of mustard green with atmospheric pressure plasmas

As NASA advances human space exploration, crop plants will play an important role in sustained human presence in space, on the moon, and on Mars. Crop plants such as leafy greens and fresh vegetables provide nutrients, varied texture, and flavor, and contribute to astronauts’ mental health. However, growing plants in the engineered environment of space habitats can introduce multiple abiotic stresses that can impact the plant’s growth and nutritional value. Drought stress is one of the important abiotic stresses. This project aims to study drought stress on ‘Amara’ mustard greens and if and how treatment with atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) can improve the plant’s drought tolerance. In plants, water deficiency can impair seed germination, crop yield, and the resulting nutritional content. Plants can naturally produce antioxidants and enzymes to combat the oxidative stress caused by drought. Research has shown that plasma treatment can further increase a plant’s production of enzymes and proteins associated with combatting oxidative stress. This project seeks to study the effect of room-temperature APP on ‘Amara’ mustard greens’ drought tolerance and nutrition. This project will be a collaboration among investigators at University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), Alabama A&M University (AAMU), and Alabama State University (ASU). The team combines expertise and lab capabilities in plasma science and technology (UAH), agriculture (AAMU), and microbiology and genetics (ASU). The project is relevant to NASA’s Space Biology Program and Human Exploration Program. The research will use a low temperature APP to treat ‘Amara’ mustard green seeds at different exposure times and different plasma gases. The longer exposures result in more plasma produced reactive species on the seeds, and the different gases (He and Ar) produce different amounts of reactive species. The treated seeds will then be observed for germination rate under drought and no-drought conditions to determine if the plasma affects the drought tolerance of the seed. After germination, the seeds will be plants and the resulting plant growth under drought and no-drought conditions will be studied. Physical and nutritional analyses including color, texture, nutrients such as ascorbic acid and carotenoids, antioxidant activity, and lipid oxidation will be done. Genetic analysis will be done to understand how the plasma changed the plant to produce different characteristics and nutrients. RNA will be extracted from the roots and shoot of the plant and processed to determine the gene expression of the control and treated plants.

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