Once the space potatoes returned to Earth we started growing them alongside their siblings who stayed here on Earth. They are currently growing in our homes in New York City and Portland, Oregon.

We started the germination process in petri dishes so we could follow the process closely. Each petri dish was divided in two and held “space seeds” on one side and “earth seeds” on the other side. Both groups of seeds corresponding to the same family. Pink labels indicate seeds that were on low-earth orbit for a month (space seeds) and yellow labels indicate seeds from the same family that remained on Earth (earth seeds).

After the initial germination period the seedlings were transplanted into small soil pellets and remained indoors. Finally, they were transplanted into pots and are growing outside covered by a mesh to protect them from hungry insects. They are planted in individual pots and maintain their yellow and pink labels so that we can grow them in the same conditions but follow their process separately. This will allow us to see if there are any morphological changes caused by their time without gravity.

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