ABC 7 - Space is the final frontier for agriculture.
"It's expensive to send food up to astronauts, so ideally, we want them to grow some of their own food," said Dr. Robert Jinkerson, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the Bourns College of Engineering at UC Riverside.
As NASA plans missions to the moon and Mars, scientists like Jinkerson are researching how to grow plants and fungal-based food using artificial photosynthesis.
"Our work is focused on how do we actually grow plants without light and try to reduce and minimize the amount of light," he said.
Instead of sunlight, Jinkerson has managed to grow tomatoes using acetate, a carbon-base alternative energy source. Jinkerson collaborated with Dr. Martha Orozco-Cardenas, the director of the Plant Transformation Research Center at UCR's College of Natural and Agriculture Sciences.
She was able to genetically alter tomato plants to be compact as well reduce their stem and leaves to fruit ratio.