Soybeans and soy proteins have received a lot of good press recently, helped by the recent validation of a health claim for soy products by the US Food & Drug Administration. But the proven health benefits of soybeans could be just the tip of the iceberg, according to the US group DuPont.
The company is hoping to discover a number of new benefits from soybeans after sending a batch into space. DuPont is working in collaboration with the Wisconsin Center for Space Automation and Robotics (WCSAR), a unit of NASA, to determine whether plants grow differently in space and whether the effects of zero gravity impact on plant growth and development.
This will be the first time that a complete soybean crop has been grown in space, from planting the seed to harvesting the grain. DuPont's subsidiary Pioneer Hi-Bred International will study the harvested seeds from soybean plants grown in space to find out if they have improved oil, protein, carbohydrates or secondary metabolites that could benefit farmers and consumers.
According to the United Soybean Board, soybeans are the largest single source of protein meal and vegetable oil in the human diet. Soybeans provide 80 per cent of the edible consumption of fats and oils in the United States alone, and the country is the largest supplier of soybeans with a 54 per cent market share in 2000.
As part of the initiative, scientists will plant soybean seeds supplied by Pioneer in a specialised tray within a growth chamber developed by WCSAR. The chamber will be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) from the space shuttle flight due to launch later today. During the 70-day experiment, the soybean plants will germinate, grow and produce seeds. Scientists will monitor the process via video and data sent from the space station.
The plants and harvested grain will be returned to Earth this summer by the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Seeds exhibiting unique and desirable qualities will be planted by Pioneer researchers to determine if the traits can be inherited in future generations. Pioneer will identify the genetics of those traits and use that information to further improve the soybeans' efficiency and profitability for farmers.
Whether these space-grown plants will provide any additional health benefits is as yet unclear, and any such benefits would of course have to be reproduced in second generation plants grown on Earth - the costs of growing commercially-viable crops in space being somewhat restrictive.