Today, October 8, the premiere of Ridley Scott’s film “The Martian” will take place in Russia. So is it possible to grow potatoes on Mars? Researcher Bruce Bugbee said he began studying the issue of astronauts growing their own food back in 1982.

Bugbee is now studying the prospects for self-sufficiency for astronauts when creating the first space colonies. In the photo below you can see radishes and lettuce growing under LED lights in one of the research chambers. These plants experience what is known as the ISS “orbital photoperiod,” where cycles repeat every 90 minutes: 60 minutes of bright light and 30 minutes of darkness. Crops are grown using hydroponic technology (without soil) and watered with a hydroponic solution using drip irrigation.

Corn was grown from seeds that had been in space - the result is surprising

Judging by preliminary studies, the growth rate of such plants is reduced slightly compared to the growth of plants from the control group, which grow with the periodicity of the earth’s cycle (16 hours of the day and 8 hours of the night). There are many challenges and benefits to the idea of ​​growing food on Mars. For long-term missions, it's simply not cost-effective to take food with you when you can grow it locally, Bugbee said in an article for the Huffington Post.

However, it's not just about nutrition. Crops can do more than just provide food. If you grow 100% of your food in closed systems, plant photosynthesis will keep oxygen and carbon dioxide in perfect balance. But these important gases are not in perfect balance every minute of every day.

Plants will not automatically grow faster to provide additional oxygen when needed, so buffers are needed to stabilize their concentration. Optimizing the mass of such buffers is not an easy task, since they must be large enough to support life during periods of instability, but small enough to be economical. However, in life support systems, “small” and “stable” are incompatible concepts. Massive oceans have acted as such buffers for centuries on Earth, but they don't exist on Mars.

An adequate supply of fresh water is the second challenge to growing food on Mars. Plants require at least 200 liters of water to produce one kilogram of food. The good news is that plants recycle and filter water - even if you water the roots with less than pure water, the water vapor that comes out of the pores on the leaves (stomata) will be cleaner than the best bottled water. As long as we grow food in a closed system, we will have fairly clean water - and there is no need for high-tech filtration systems.

And now, after NASA's press conference announcing that there is salt water on Mars, we can think about life support systems by filtering salt from the water that the planet already has. This technology is already used in cities with limited water supplies, so this method could also be used on Mars.

The third major problem is the light required for photosynthesis. Unlike indoor plants, cultivated plants cannot survive without bright light; their photosynthesis processes proceed faster. In an ordinary (well-lit!) office there is a hundred times less light than outside, and 30 times less than the minimum light required to grow potatoes or other crops. At the same time, Mars is 1.5 times farther from the Sun than the Earth and, although the thin atmosphere of the planet minimally filters solar radiation, the intensity of illumination on the surface is about 60% of that on Earth.

However, in the film, protagonist Mark Watney, stranded on Mars, grows potatoes using office lighting in a room designed to block electromagnetic radiation from the Sun. Designing a Martian greenhouse poses enormous challenges. An extremely strong, transparent membrane is needed that will withstand meteorite bombardment. It must filter cosmic radiation, allowing photosynthetically active radiation to pass through.

The newest technology at the moment uses parabolic concentrating reflectors and transmits sunlight using optical fiber. Calculations show that with such technologies, as well as optimal environmental conditions, a planting area of ​​25 square meters would be sufficient for one person.

What else in the film seems implausible? We know that Mark Watney survived on protein bars, vitamins and potato carbohydrates for almost two years. We don't yet know the long-term effects of such a restricted diet. We typically eat hundreds of plant foods per week. Can we reduce the diet to 50 plant species or even 10? Perhaps, but we need long-term studies with people in closed systems on Earth to determine the consequences of such a limited diet. If we assume that the environment on Mars will be limited, we must consider that the diet will be strictly vegan, with no fruits or nuts growing on trees.

Early research points to the enormous psychological value of plants. Mark Watney recalled the potato plants he was missing after harvest. When astronauts return to Earth, they often talk about experiments with growing plants and the connections they made with them. 10 years ago, an astronaut who spent a year in space said: “Long-term space missions are impossible without plants.”

Our planet is this closed system that rushes through outer space. The best minds on the planet are now focused on solving the consequences resulting from a seemingly minor change - an increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 0.03% to 0.04%. We are just beginning to understand the consequences and impact of this seemingly small change.

Perhaps the adventures of Mark Watney will inspire young people to further scientific research and help save our planet from possible destruction.

Future colonies on Mars, which the inhabitants of Earth hope to create, will require from the first settlers not only courage and endurance, but also the ability to provide themselves with food. To make this task feasible, specialists from the International Potato Center began an experiment in 2016 to grow the plant in extreme conditions. After conducting a series of experiments, they made a statement that, according to preliminary data, potatoes can grow in dry, salt-filled soil in the atmosphere of the Red Planet.

To test whether potatoes could adapt to such an environment, the scientists used a container created by specialists from the University of Engineering and Technology (UTEC) in Lima based on a small CubeSat satellite. Soil similar in properties to Martian soil was placed in it - dry, salt-rich samples were taken from the Pampas de la Hoya desert in southern Peru.

The installation recreated the composition of the atmosphere of Mars - it contains 95% carbon dioxide and only about 1% oxygen.

The pressure in the chamber was also set appropriately, more than 100 times less than on Earth. The researchers also simulated night and day temperatures on the Red Planet - with sharp changes. The soil was watered with water saturated with nutrients.

At the same time, experimenters monitored how different types of potatoes would grow in difficult conditions. So they were able to determine the most persistent ones. The process of sprouting on tubers was recorded on video.

“Growing potatoes in conditions similar to Mars is an important part of the experiment,” said researcher Julio Valdivia-Silva from UTEC. “We want to find out what the minimum requirements are for it to grow.”

The research team is interested not only in how settlers will provide themselves with food on another planet.

Selecting the most resilient potato varieties, they argue, will help cope with the threat of hunger on Earth.

They are convinced that the most unpretentious species will help feed the inhabitants of those parts of our planet where unfavorable climate changes have already occurred or are soon expected and agricultural yields are under threat.

• pixabay.com

Vegetable garden with lead and mercury

At the same time, other research groups managed to take care not only of the availability of food among space explorers, but also of its diversity.

Specialists from Wageningen University in the Netherlands have been working on this problem since 2013. Then a whole series of experiments was launched to find out how to grow edible plants on the Moon and Mars.

The scientists began by planting 10 types of plants: 6 grains and 4 types of vegetables. To recreate Martian soil, samples from the Mauna Loa volcano were used. And to simulate the moon, samples were taken from the desert in Arizona. The experiment was successful: the plants sprouted.

Researchers have found that plants would have the worst time on the Moon. However, Dutch specialists did not try to change the composition of the atmosphere in which they tested the potential of plants. According to their conclusions, plants will have to be grown under a kind of hood. The air there will be similar to that on earth. In addition, scientists will protect crops from the harmful effects of the gas shell of Mars and from radiation.

• pixabay.com

However, scientists did not dare try the plants grown as a result of the experiment: they considered that the fruits produced by the “Martian” soil were dangerous due to the high content of lead, arsenic, mercury and iron in it.

It was only in July 2016 that a group from Wageningen University first tried to find out whether vegetables, grains and beans grown “on Mars” were edible. It turned out that the content of potentially hazardous substances in radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes does not exceed the permissible limit.

Now researchers continue their experiments and experiment with living organisms. In February 2017, a group of researchers began observing the life of worms in the soil being studied. Experts feed them with the remnants of last year’s “Martian” harvest. Interim results have not yet been reported. It is worth noting, however, that the success of such an experiment would mean that at least a small self-sustaining ecosystem could be created on Mars or the Moon.

Why potatoes are the most innovative product

A flight to Mars presents a vast field for fantasy and speculation, but one thing is certain: there will certainly be potatoes on the table of the astronauts who will embark on a three-year journey to the Red Planet. And fresh: they, of course, will not carry bags of potatoes with them, but will collect the harvest in flight. In 1995, potatoes became the first vegetable grown in space, on board the space shuttle Columbia.

SERGEY MANUKOV

On par with iron

In the list of the most common edible crops, potatoes take an honorable fourth place after rice, wheat and corn. Today, hundreds of potato varieties are grown in 120–130 countries around the world.

Every day, more than a billion people eat at least one potato. Someone calculated that if a four-lane highway were covered with an annual potato harvest, it would circle the globe at the equator six times.

China ranks first in potato production, where tuberous nightshade arrived at the end of the Ming Dynasty, in the first half of the 17th century. China produces up to a quarter of the world's potatoes (almost 100 million tons in 2016). For comparison: in Russia last year about 30 million tons of this crop were grown.

In America, potatoes are the second food product after milk (it is no coincidence that “Potato Head” became the first children's toy to be advertised on American television in 1952).

Thousands of American children were familiar with Mr. Potato Head - made of plastic and with additional accessories

Photo: Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Potatoes are loved and respected all over the world. The UN declared 2008 the International Year of the Potato. The purpose of the action was to promote it as a food product that can feed tens of millions of starving people in Africa and Asia.

The main advantages of potatoes over wheat and other grains, which were the main agricultural crops in Europe in the 16th–19th centuries, are their unpretentiousness and ease of cultivation. Potatoes are easier to store, they satisfy hunger faster and better. In any form, potatoes are cheaper than wheat or rye bread.

Of course, this was not always the case. At the very end of the 19th century, for example, during the Klondike gold rush, potatoes were literally worth their weight in gold: the vitamin C contained in the tubers helps fight scurvy.

Scientists made their contribution to the popularization of this agricultural crop by discovering a rich set of vitamins and nutrients in potatoes. 100 g of potatoes contains 78.6 g of water, 16.3 g of carbohydrates, 1.4 g of dietary fiber, 2 g of protein, 0.4 g of fat. It contains a lot of vitamins (in addition to C, these are E, K, B6), minerals and metals (magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, etc.).

Potatoes have more vitamin C than oranges, more potassium than bananas, and more fiber than apples.

One baked potato contains 21% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin B6, 40% vitamin C, 20% potassium and 12% fiber.

The energy value of a medium-sized potato is about 110 calories. For comparison: a cup of rice has 225 calories, a plate of pasta has 115.

To prove that potatoes contain almost all the nutrients needed by humans, Chris Voight, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission, ate only potatoes for 60 days in the fall of 2010. He ate 20 potatoes a day and claimed that he felt great. Scientists have confirmed that a person can live for some time on potatoes and milk without harm to health (milk is necessary because potatoes are low in vitamins A and D).

Potatoes also had a huge impact on the economy of the Old World. According to some reports, thanks to this representative of the nightshade family, it was possible to double the energy value of the European diet and put an end to the regularly occurring crop failures and the resulting famine that had tormented Europe for centuries. The fact is that over time, the governments of the countries of the Old World began to institutionalize food production: in order to get healthy workers, soldiers and employees, the authorities encouraged the mass production of the necessary products, one of which was potatoes, and supported peasants and farmers. The result of this practical policy was the rapid growth of the continent's population. Many historians and economists believe that the widespread introduction of potatoes into the European diet and a sharp jump in their yields led to the fact that the population of Europe increased from 140 million people in 1750 to 266 million in 1850. It is no coincidence that Friedrich Engels believed that in terms of the historical and revolutionary role in the life of mankind, potatoes are not inferior to iron.

“Iron began to serve man,” he wrote in “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” “the last and most important of all types of raw materials that played a revolutionary role in history, the last one until the advent of potatoes.”

Long way to Europe

Archaeologists claim that potatoes began to be cultivated 8 thousand years ago in the South American Andes, in the territory of modern Peru. The distant ancestors of today's farmers grew up to 400 varieties of this tuberous plant.

The importance of potatoes for the Incas is evidenced by the presence of a “potato” goddess among them. She was the daughter of the earth goddess Pachamama, and her name was Axomama.

The Incas chose the most irregularly shaped potatoes and asked them for a good harvest.

Of course, South Americans primarily ate potatoes, but they also had other functions. For example, the Incas took a length of about an hour as a unit of time - that’s how long the tubers were cooked.

Potatoes were also widely used in medicine: they were applied to broken bones so that they would heal faster; it helped with rheumatism and improved digestion. Thin slices of potatoes and potato juice have been used to successfully treat sunburn and frostbite. It was believed that a potato tuber could soothe a toothache. Baked potatoes applied to the throat were used to treat sore throat.

Potatoes were brought to Europe by Spanish conquistadors in the mid-16th century. The first to do this, apparently, was Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, who conquered Colombia for the Spanish crown; or Pedro Cieza de Leon, who was not only a soldier, but also an explorer and priest. It was from his fundamental work “Chronicle of Peru” that Europeans learned about potatoes.

The first European country where they started eating potatoes, of course, was Spain. Madrid quickly drew attention to the potential of potatoes for the needs of the army. Spain in the 16th century was the most powerful state in the Old World and had extensive possessions. Potatoes were perfectly suited for supplying the army on campaigns. In addition, as already mentioned, he helped in the fight against scurvy.

The first place beyond the borders of Central and South America where potatoes were cultivated was the Canary Islands in 1567, and the first place where they were consumed by the civilian population was one of the hospitals in Seville in 1573.

Of course, potatoes were spread throughout Europe not only by Spanish soldiers who fought in Italy, Holland, Germany, and other countries. King Philip II, who received potatoes from Peru, sent several tubers as a gift to Pope Gregory XIII. The Pontiff sent them to Holland to the nuncio, who was ill. From the papal ambassador, the potato came to the most famous botanist of the 16th century, Charles Clusius, who planted it in several cities. True, he grew it like... a flower.

Great Potato Famine

By 1640, potatoes were known almost everywhere in Europe, but, except in Spain and Ireland, they were used to feed livestock. Potatoes were brought to Ireland in 1589 by the navigator, soldier and statesman Sir Walter Raleigh. He planted 40,000 acres of fields with this crop near Cork, in the southwest of the island.

Ireland quickly became the most potato-rich country in Europe. By the early 40s of the 19th century, potatoes occupied, according to various sources, from a third to a half of arable land on the island. Almost half of the Irish ate potatoes exclusively.

Of course, the other half of the islanders also ate potatoes, but there were other foods in their diet.

This dependence on potatoes played a cruel joke on the Irish. In 1845, of course, a very harmful mushroom was accidentally brought from North America to the Emerald Isle, the name of which “phytophthora” is not accidentally translated from Latin as “destroying a plant.” Late blight brought late blight, a plant disease that attacks tubers and leaves, to Ireland and the continent. Fate clearly did not favor Ireland. That same year there was an unusually cold and wet summer. This weather is ideal for the growth of the fungus. The result was terrible potato harvest failures in 1845–1849 and a severe famine that reversed the demographic history of the island. The population of Ireland, which was 8.4 million people in 1844, had dropped to 6.6 million by 1851. At the beginning of the twentieth century, there were half as many Irish people as half a century earlier: at least a million died from hunger and disease, another million went to searching for a better life. B O The majority settled in the USA, Canada, Great Britain and Australia.

Of course, late blight was not limited to Ireland. The potato crop failed in almost all European countries, but the damage, due to much less dependence, was much less than in Ireland.

Despite the Great Famine, the Irish maintained their love of potatoes. Suffice it to say that the average Irishman now eats 90kg of potatoes a year, and the British - 55.6kg. The Russians are significantly higher in the “potato” ranking with their 112 kg per capita, although they are not in first place.

Potato King

Another “potato” country in Europe in the 18th century was Prussia. Moreover, “earth apples,” as potatoes were called until the 19th century, were promoted by the Prussian king Frederick II. Of course, he received the nickname “Great” not for promoting potatoes, but for other merits. The promotion of potatoes, expressed, for example, in the Potato Decree (1756), obliging peasants to grow them under pain of heavy fines and other punishments, earned him the nickname “Potato King.”

Despite the punishments, Prussian peasants were in no hurry to include potatoes in their diet. At best, they fed it to pigs, and at worst, they simply burned it or destroyed it in other ways. It got to the point that the potato fields had to be guarded by soldiers.

The Prussians did not eat potatoes because they were afraid of getting... leprosy. In many European countries, this terrible disease was attributed to potatoes - probably due to the external similarity of growths on tubers with ulcers.

And yet, Frederick managed to overcome the superstitions of his subjects. One day he went out onto the balcony of the palace in Breslau (Wroclaw) and in front of the amazed citizens began to eat... potatoes. The stubborn Prussians thought: maybe potatoes are not so terrible if the king himself eats them? The attitude towards potatoes was finally changed by the Seven Years' War. It was potatoes that saved Prussia from the famine prepared for it by the blockade of Austria and Russia.

By the way, potatoes saved Prussia from starvation more than once. This year marks the 140th anniversary of the War of the Bavarian Succession. The second, less common, at least among historians, name for this armed conflict between Prussia and Austria is the Potato War. Hostilities began in July 1778. They were conducted sluggishly and lasted less than a year. The parties did not so much fight with each other as they tried to interfere with the enemy’s food supply in order to force them to surrender. As a result, both armies were forced to eat potatoes and plums.

Potato riots

Potatoes came to Russia at the end of the 17th century. Peter I, who went to Europe with the Grand Embassy, ​​sent a bag of strange tubers to Moscow from Holland.

The fate of potatoes in Russia is generally similar to what happened to them in other European countries: at first they were considered poisonous, but over time they conquered the Russians and became one of the main foodstuffs of the inhabitants of the Russian Empire.

Of course, there was some national flavor too. A special place in the history of potatoes in Russia is occupied by riots, which were called potato riots.

Already three years after the accession to the throne of Catherine II, in 1765, a decree was issued on the “breeding of earthen apples.” It is curious that people continued to call it an “apple” - not just an “earth apple”, but a “devil’s apple” - even in the 19th century. Governors were obliged to send annual reports to St. Petersburg on the “potatoization” of the provinces entrusted to them.

They tried to overcome the reluctance of peasants to grow potatoes, as usual, with punitive measures.

It is known, for example, that in the middle of the 19th century, peasants of the Yenisei province who refused to cultivate potatoes were sent to Belarus for the construction of the Bobruisk fortress.

Naturally, the punitive measures introduced on the initiative of the Minister of State Property Count Kiselyov, who ordered the allocation of peasant lands for planting potatoes, could not but cause a response. A series of unrest swept across the empire in the 1830s and 1840s, involving up to half a million people who did not want to grow potatoes. Troops were called in to quell the riots. Participants in the unrest were tried, imprisoned and flogged with spitzrutens (often beaten to death).

But, despite everything, potatoes won in Russia. By the end of the 19th century, over 1.5 million hectares were occupied by it, and at the beginning of the last century it became so firmly established in the Russian diet that it was rightfully considered “second bread.”

The man who fed the French to their fill

Antoine-Augustin Parmentier - scientist, politician, agronomist and the man who taught France to eat potatoes

Photo: Photononstop / DIOMEDIA, Photononstop / HervÚ Gyssels / DIOMEDIA

In the overwhelming majority of cases, people who were captured do not have the best memories of this period of their lives. The French pharmacist and chemist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier is in the minority in this sense. The three-year stay in captivity radically changed his entire future life.

Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was born on August 12, 1737 in the north of France, in the town of Montdidier. The father died very early, the boy was raised by his mother. At the age of 13, he began learning the basics of pharmacy from the city pharmacist. At 18, Antoine-Augustin went to Paris and got a job in a relative's pharmacy.

The young man had excellent memory and intelligence, he grasped everything on the fly. Two years later, he decided to become an army pharmacist and enlisted in the army. Parmentier served under the famous pharmacist and chemist Pierre Bayen, with whom he quickly became friends. Antoine-Augustin's military career was rapid: at the age of 24 he already held the post of deputy chief pharmacist of the army. Despite his young age, Antoine-Augustin Parmentier won the respect of both soldiers and colleagues.

At that time, the Seven Years' War was raging in Europe. Parmentier was captured by the Prussians, where he remained until the end of the war. What he remembered most about his three-year captivity was the food. Of course, he was not fed delicious dishes - he had to eat almost only potatoes. During these three years he ate more potatoes than in the previous two decades. This is not surprising, because before his captivity Antoine-Augustin did not eat potatoes at all for one simple reason.

In 1748, the French Parliament banned the growing and eating of potatoes in the kingdom, which were considered a poisonous plant.

After living exclusively on potatoes for three years, Parmentier came to the conclusion that the French fears regarding this crop were greatly exaggerated. He could judge from his own experience that potatoes were harmless. Moreover, Antoine-Augustin, who was not only a good pharmacist, but also a chemist, had no doubt that the disgraced plant had high nutritional properties.

Of course, it would be a great exaggeration to say that Parmentier felt deep gratitude to the Prussians. Despite his acquaintance with potatoes, which radically changed his whole life, he did not have the warmest feelings towards the Germans, and many years after the war he refused the offer to become the chief pharmacist at the court in Berlin.

The 18th century is considered the century of enlightenment, the century of the flourishing of sciences and great scientists. Wheat, the main ingredient of the staple of the French diet - bread, was a very capricious plant. In addition, the second half of the 18th - early 19th centuries saw the third phase of the Little Ice Age, accompanied by a sharp cooling. This led to frequent crop failures of major crops, including wheat, and numerous casualties among the poor who died of starvation. All this happened before the eyes of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier. He returned home from captivity, eager to replace wheat on the French table with potatoes, which were considered a dirty plant because the edible part of it, the tubers, grew in the ground and was used as feed for livestock, primarily pigs.

In Paris, Antoine-Augustin Parmentier continued his studies in chemistry, physics and botany. He worked hard and earned good money, but spent all his money on books.

In the fall of 1766, Parmentier became the chief pharmacist of the Invalides. Throughout his six years in this post, he experimented with plants in a small garden, trying to increase their nutritional value.

During his years of work at the Invalides, Antoine-Augustin recklessly ruined his relationship with the church. He wanted to plant a large vegetable garden for experiments with potatoes on land that, as it turned out, belonged to nuns. Dissatisfied with the encroachment on their property, the nuns began to write denunciations against the impudent pharmacist, who eventually lost his position.

All of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier's thoughts were still occupied by potatoes, with which he wanted to replace wheat. Antoine-Augustin even intended to bake bread from potato flour and developed a technology for making such bread.

Among other things, Parmentier became famous for his scientific and educational activities. In 1780, for example, he insisted on opening an Academy... of bakers, where he himself taught. “If there are schools for training people who will feed horses,” he wrote in one of his treatises, “then why shouldn’t there be a school for bakers, who are entrusted with the health of the people?”

Antoine-Augustin wrote many books, pamphlets and scientific articles. In 1772, his treatise “Investigation of nutritious vegetables, which in difficult times can replace ordinary food,” devoted mainly to potatoes, won the competition of the Besançon Academy of Sciences. A year later, another book was published in which Parmentier compared potatoes, wheat and rice in terms of nutritional qualities. In this unofficial competition, potatoes naturally took first place.

The books did not pave the way for potatoes to the French table, but they brought fame to the author, as well as a place as a royal censor (inspector). His duties included traveling around the kingdom and eliminating the causes of wheat shortages. During one of these inspection trips, he even helped fellow countrymen in Montdidier who complained about rotting wheat: Parmentier found and eliminated the cause of the disease.

Love for life

With the help of research and experiments, Antoine-Augustin Parmentier gradually managed to convince fellow scientists of the harmlessness of potatoes and even prove their practical benefits. In 1772, the ban on potatoes was officially lifted, but this could not overcome the mistrust of ordinary French people, who in the second half of the 18th century were mired in prejudices and superstitions.

At this crucial moment in the history of potatoes, Parmentier’s unexpectedly discovered talent, as we would now say, as a producer, came in very handy. Unable to pave the way for his favorite plant in an “honest” way, he decided to use a little trick.

Antoine-Augustin began by conquering the nobles. He understood perfectly well that the easiest way to do this was with the help of the royal family, with whom he was familiar through his line of service. He managed to convince Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette of the benefits of potatoes. What most influenced the king, of course, was the practical side of the matter: he really liked the idea of ​​replacing wheat with potatoes and ridding the kingdom of hunger and uprisings.

Parmentier came up with a cunning plan. He persuaded Louis to wear a bouquet of potato flowers in the buttonhole of his doublet.

The Queen also supported the popularizer. According to one version, she attached a bouquet of potato flowers to her hat, and according to another, she inserted it into her hair. The royal couple also hosted several dinners where potato dishes were served.

Parmentier's good relationship with Louis XVI almost backfired. After the revolution, all his property was expropriated. True, the disgrace turned out to be short-lived - the new government wanted to feed the French no less than the old one. The revolutionaries also had no need for unrest and riots.

Antoine-Augustin organized themed dinners that thundered throughout Paris. All two dozen dishes served at the table, including drinks, were made from potatoes. The fame of Parmentier's potato dinners was also contributed to by the celebrities who visited his house. It is enough to name the names of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and the famous French naturalist, founder of modern chemistry Antoine Lavoisier. It was Jefferson, whose famous library at Monticello featured Parmentier's "potato" treatise prominently, who is credited with introducing the French fry to Americans during his time in the White House (1801–1809).

Thanks to Louis and Marie Antoinette, as well as the resourcefulness of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier, potatoes conquered the French nobility. Hoping to use potatoes to rid the kingdom of hunger, the king allocated Parmentier in 1787 a large field with an area of ​​54 arpans (18.3 hectares) in the town of Sablon, in the western suburbs of the capital. Antoine-Augustin planted it with potatoes and spread rumors throughout the surrounding villages that a very valuable plant was sown in the field. He ordered the soldiers guarding the field to let onlookers in, but to keep everything natural, to take money for it. In addition, the guards were supposed to not notice the theft of tubers and leave at dusk, leaving the field unguarded. The fact that the field was guarded by the military added credibility to the rumors about the high value of the potatoes.

Naturally, townspeople and peasants from neighboring villages came to the field during the day, and especially at night. They dug up potatoes, ate them and were convinced from their own experience of their harmlessness and high taste.

Ten years passed between the first “massive” success of potatoes in France and the final conquest of the kingdom - or rather, then the Republic - ten years passed: in 1785, when another crop failure occurred, potatoes helped tens of thousands of French in the north of the country escape from starvation. In 1795, he saved thousands of Parisians from starvation. Potatoes were grown in the streets and squares of the capital and even in the Tuileries Gardens during the siege of the first Paris Commune.

Another very important milestone in the history of this culture in France, according to historians, was 1794, when Madame Merigo published the first culinary reference book, which contained recipes for potato dishes. Potatoes began to be called the food of revolutionaries.

Of course, Antoine-Augustin Parmentier was not only involved in potatoes. He was a Scientist with a capital S, whose significance was expressed in the practical benefits of his research and discoveries. For example, in 1790, his joint research with Nicholas Dayeux on the chemical composition of milk received an award from the Royal Society of Medicine.

As a result of the continental blockade, sugar virtually disappeared from France. In 1808–1813, Parmentier, who had previously developed a method for obtaining sugar from beets, figured out how to obtain sugar from grapes.

He studied bread baking a lot and developed a new technology for grinding flour, which increased the efficiency of the process by 16%. And yet his favorite product remained potatoes.

Food, both during the years of the Republic and under Napoleon, who, by the way, knew our hero well, was no better than under the king. Antoine-Augustin Parmentier feverishly searched for new sources of nutrients and developed technologies for food preservation. It is difficult to find an area related to food that would not be occupied by the person who “promoted” the potato.

At the same time, Antoine-Augustin did not forget about his main profession. He held many of the highest positions in French pharmaceuticals - both in the civilian and military spheres. Parmentier served on dozens of commissions and committees dealing with medicines and the nation's health care. Suffice it to say that for almost two decades - from 1796 until his death in 1813 - he worked as inspector general of health in France.

A special place in the life of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier is occupied by research in the field of vaccination. By the way, he conducted the first experiment on vaccination against smallpox at home. Antoine-Augustin put a lot of effort into developing a vaccine for the poor. Thanks to his persistence, vaccination centers were opened in all departments of France.

During his long scientific career, Parmentier received 48 diplomas and awards from academies and institutes. He was an honorary member of the academies of Alexandria, Bern, Brussels, Florence, Geneva, Lausanne, Madrid, Milan, Naples, Turin and Vienna. Antoine-Augustin wrote 165 books and papers on agronomy, as well as thousands of scientific articles. His track record also includes “bestsellers.” The most famous, perhaps, is a reference book on pharmaceuticals, which has been republished at least a dozen times, including abroad.

Fame and fame did not prevent Parmentier from remaining a modest person. Napoleon decided to allocate ten orders of the Legion of Honor to pharmacists. Everyone was quite surprised when it turned out that the name Parmentier was not on the list of awardees. The bewilderment dissipated when it turned out that he himself compiled this list. Naturally, later the “oversight” was corrected and Antoine-Augustin also became a knight of this most honorable award in France.

During his work, Antoine-Augustin Parmentier forgot about his personal life. He was not married and had no children. Parmentier died on December 13, 1813 at the age of 77 from pulmonary consumption (tuberculosis).

Parmentier is buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. His grave, as you might guess, is planted with flowering potatoes. Near it you can still see grateful French people who bring flowers or potato tubers instead of ordinary flowers.

During one of his audiences, Louis XVI said: “France will not forget that you found food for the poor.” And France really hasn't forgotten. Bronze statues were erected in Montdidier and Neuilly squares in honor of the “godfather of the potato”, streets in the 10th and 11th arrondissements of Paris and a station on the third line of the capital’s metro, the walls of which are decorated with “potato” mosaics, as well as hospitals were named after him , schools, libraries and much more. Including, of course, numerous dishes based on his favorite potatoes.

A still from the film “The Martian”, where the main character Mark Watney sets up a greenhouse for growing potatoes

The Martian / Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, 2015

Preliminary results of an experiment to grow potatoes in conditions simulating those on Mars were positive, the International Potato Center (CIP) in Peru reported in a press release published on the organization's website. As video footage taken by a camera inside a sealed container shows, the tubers were able to germinate even in fairly dry soil and at low atmospheric pressure.

For several years now, researchers have been conducting experiments on growing crops in conditions as close as possible to those on Mars. With their help, scientists hope to determine whether plants can survive on another planet, as well as how suitable they will be for human consumption. Thus, research shows that some crops are indeed capable of existing at low atmospheric pressure and humidity, but the number of such experiments is still too small to clearly judge the viability of plants.

A new experiment by the International Potato Center (CIP) and the NASA aerospace agency launched on February 14, 2016. Researchers from the Peruvian University of Engineering and Technology created a special platform based on a CubeSat satellite, where a camera was placed with soil from the Pampa de la Hoya desert, one of the driest places on Earth. Inside the sealed installation, agronomists reproduced Martian temperature, atmospheric pressure, and the corresponding levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air. The soil was fertilized with water in which nutrients were dissolved (researchers do not report anything about the chemical composition of the soil and fertilizers, however, it is worth noting that real Martian soil contains large amounts of perchloric acid salts (perchlorates).

The condition of the plants was monitored using a camera mounted on a modified CubeSat, which monitored the soil around the clock. It turned out that potatoes are able to germinate in even dry soil (the video shows plants planted as early as 2017). In addition, according to Walter Amoros, one of the project participants, agronomists managed to obtain tubers, but nothing was reported about their quality and suitability for food. The researchers are also not saying which potato variety was used for this experiment.

Experts have concluded that future colonists will probably still be able to grow potatoes on Mars, but to do this they will have to first saturate the soil with nutrients and loosen it so that the tubers receive enough air and water. In the future, agronomists plan to continue their research and determine a sufficient minimum for growing potatoes.

This is the second such experiment of the International Potato Center. As scientists reported last year, there are 100 types of potatoes for him, which have previously been tested for survival in “Martian” conditions. Among the selected candidates, 40 species are native to the Andes in rocky, arid conditions and can withstand extreme weather changes, while the remaining 60 are genetically modified varieties adapted to survive in soils with low water and salt content.

In 2015, scientists from Holland also conducted an experiment on growing crops. They are ten species of plants in soil that is as similar as possible to Martian and lunar soil. Despite the fact that the researchers were able to obtain a harvest, it is worth noting that all samples were kept in greenhouse conditions at constant temperature, humidity and lighting.

Kristina Ulasovich

The results were promising

A scientific organization called the International Potato Center and the American aerospace agency NASA conducted an experiment on growing potatoes in conditions close to those on Mars. Despite the dry soil, unusual air and low atmospheric pressure characteristic of Mars, many varieties managed to germinate successfully.

The experiment was reported at the beginning of last year, when specialists were most suitable for growing in “Martian” conditions. About half of these varieties have been artificially bred to require little water and be immune to viruses. Other varieties that were selected for the experiment grow in the Andes - they are able to grow on rocky soil in arid areas and tolerate sudden climate changes well.

Scientists planted potatoes in a special “greenhouse” based on the CubeSat satellite. Inside this installation was land from the Pampa de la Hoya desert (one of the driest places on Earth). The atmospheric pressure, as well as the composition of the atmosphere, corresponded to “Martian” ones, and the air temperature also corresponded to that usually observed on the Red Planet. Minerals characteristic of Martian soil were added to the soil.

The experiment showed that growing potatoes on Mars is most likely possible, but this will require first saturating the soil with nutrients and loosening it - in this case, the tubers will receive a sufficient amount of water and oxygen.

Experts conduct similar experiments to find out how high the chances will be of actually growing certain food products on Mars - for example, if an expedition is sent to Mars, and such a “garden” would make it possible to provide food for its participants.

In the middle of last year, specialists from Holland were able to grow radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes on soil similar to Martian soil, and all these products turned out to be suitable for human consumption.