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Finding the perfect recipe for space: HUMMUS1 takes off

Published on the 27 May 2019
It’s one thing to oppose a tax on inheritances. It’s quite another to subsidise inheritances. Image from Shutterstock

Congratulations to a team of BABS and BEES students within the student group SAAS Missions (Science and Agricultural Application in Space Missions) and supervised under Brendan Burns for the recent success of project HUMMUS1.

The experiment, fittingly named HUMMUS1, is looking into how space conditions impact the survival of rhizobia, a type of bacteria commonly found in the root system of legumes. Rhizobia is essential to the healthy and successful plant growth of many crops. Legumes – like chickpeas – are a staple in agriculture.  

This project was an interdisciplinary collaboration of multiple companies, universities, societies, and faculties, including Jade Hartley and Ivan Kennedy from the Pulsford Lab at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Agriculture, who contributed the bacterial cultures, medium and mentoring of the experiment itself.