Twenty-five million metric tons of cotton is grown worldwide each year and each kilogram requires thousands of litres of water to produce. A competition was organized by US non-profit Centre for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to focus on the environmental and cotton impact.
Award winning projects by Gilroy and Christopher Saski were based on the research to increase sustainability by generation of cotton with roots that collect water more efficiently and regeneration of cotton plant tissue in micro and normal gravity environments, respectively.
Gilroy’s research is based on cotton variety that has roots with drought resistance stems using soil and water efficiently. The research will help understand the plants growth, stress response and root behavior in the absence of gravity.
Another innovative approach by Christopher Saski, will be a biological revolution in terms of genetic regeneration of plant species critical to global agricultural sustainability by examining genes, DNA patterns and gnomes sequences of embryogenic callus material that responds differently under micro and normal gravity.
