Rich in carbohydrate, rice is the food base of many peoples across the planet. Nowadays, it is no different, cereal culture is the third largest in the world. In Brazil, for example, rice and beans are the food base of Brazilians. Used in various dishes in cooking to make soups, sweets and sakes. The world's largest producer and consumer of rice is China. 

And speaking of them, the Chinese are going to grow rice on a space station. The xiaowei name variety, which is 20 to 30 centimeters long, according to data from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the grain can be grown anywhere in the future. The Wentian module as it is called, along with the central module of the Chinese space station, created the cultivar in the laboratory. If the venture works, astronauts will pause their routine activities to "work" on the space harvest. 

But Zhang Tao, head of the shanghai Institute of Technology's space life science instrumentation team, notes that factors such as microgravity and even radiation can interfere with planting. There, in space, the sowing process will be different, the cycle of growth and flowering as well. The experiment is an initiative of great importance for food production on the Moon or Mars, for example. 

The most recent harvest recorded in space was peppers on the International Space Station (ISS), used to prepare a Mexican dinner for astronauts. Who knows, if the rice cultivation there works, it can be consumed with other delicacies. Around here, cereal requires environments that have plenty of water and temperatures between 24 and 30 degrees Celsius to develop. 

Source: Agrolink