Developmental, nutritional and hormonal anomalies of weightlessness-grown wheat

The behavior of water in weightlessness, as occurs in orbiting spacecraft, presents multiple challenges for plant growth. Soils remain saturated, impeding aeration, and leaf surfaces remain wet, impeding gas exchange. Herein we report developmental and biochemical anomalies of “Super Dwarf” wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grown aboard Space Station Mir during the 1996-97 “Greenhouse 2” experiment. Leaves of Mir-grown wheat were hyperhydric, senesced precociously and accumulated aromatic and branched-chain amino acids typical of tissues experiencing oxidative stress. The highest levels of stress-specific amino acids occurred in precociously-senescing leaves. Our results suggest that the leaf ventilation system of the Svet Greenhouse failed to remove sufficient boundary layer water, thus leading to poor gas exchange and onset of oxidative stress. As oxidative stress in plants has been observed in recent space-flight experiments, we recommend that percentage water content in apoplast free-spaces of leaves be used to evaluate leaf ventilation effectiveness. Mir-grown plants also tillered excessively. Crowns and culms of these plants contained low levels of abscisic acid but high levels of cytokinins. High ethylene levels may have suppressed abscisic acid synthesis, thus permitting cytokinins to accumulate and tillering to occur.