[X] My Assistant

[Juramike]

We'll soon know what kinds of crops we can grow on Mars! Bonus, the fruits will be already freeze-dried!

Handy list of preferred pH's of common garden plants.

-Mike

[TheChemist]

Some tidbits from the July 1st entry of Dr Tom Pike's diary for the BBC News website :

"In particular, if the soil is alkaline this may go a long way to explaining the Viking experiment. Fifteen years ago, one of my Phoenix colleagues, Richard Quinn, worked out that just such a soil would explain the Viking results."

and

"The data streams down, filing up our computer screens with scans from all the sensors. There's a quiet smile on Richard's face as he concentrates on just one of these lines - the soil is just about as alkaline as he expected.

It looks like one of the biggest mysteries from previous missions to Mars has been cracked by Phoenix. It was the chemical reactions of nutrients with the chemistry of the soil, not life, that Viking saw back in 1976. "

Before touchdown, Dr. Quinn was quoted in an article at the SETI site :

When asked, "What would be the best possible outcome from these experiments?" Quinn replied, "A sample with high salt content and reasonable ph which would reveal a history of water, coupled with results from the Thermal Evolved Gas Analyzer that found organics in the soil." Then, you'd have both water and organics. Perhaps evidence of life?

So,
If the alkaline pH supports the "superoxides in soil" Viking explanation, why were teran gardeners encouraged to have high hopes for martian asparagus ? Anyone care to enlighten us ?

[marsbug]

I'd guess that the alkaline soil is one piece of evidence in favour of the superoxide idea, but there are a lot more to be found before it's proven- such as the superoxides themselves! Over simplified reporting, although i may be judging prematurely, having not read the thing..

Edit: now I've read it I think its less oversimplification, more two tentative interpretations on preliminary results, as always more data needed!