With the return of the Shenzhou-14 crew on [December 4], the third batch of space science experiment samples that arrived with the return capsule were delivered to Beijing in the early hours of [December 5], including the world’s first rice seedlings harvested in space.

Experimental seeds of Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress, also grew vigorously in the space station. The two plants experienced 120 days of space cultivation, and completed the entire growth process from seed to seed.

Rice, the crop that feeds nearly half of the world’s population, is considered to be a major candidate for the life support system in future manned deep-space exploration.

Thale cress is a winter annual with a relatively short life cycle, and it is a popular model organism in plant biology and genetics.

For human beings to survive in space for a long time, it is necessary to ensure that plants can complete the alternation of generations and successfully reproduce in space, experts said.

Researchers chose thale cress and rice to conduct the experiment because thale cress represents many kinds of vegetables, such as bok choy and oilseed rape, while rice represents many grain crops, such as wheat and corn, the Global Times learned from Zheng Huiqiong, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences.

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