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I recommend to use as crop candidates for establishing Martian agriculture based on the study from China.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a … 6508000593

They choose 14 crops including 4 food crops (wheat, rice, soybean and peanut) and 7 vegetables (Chinese cabbage, lettuce, radish, carrot, tomato, squash and pepper). Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), rice (Oryza sativa L.), soybean (Glycine max L.) and peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) are main food crops in China. Chinese cabbage (Brassica campestris L. ssp. chinensis var. communis), lettuce (Lactuca sativa L. var. longifolia Lam.), radish (Raphanus sativus L.), carrot (Daucus carota L. var. sativa DC.), tomato (Lycopersicon escalentum L.), squash (Cucurbita moschata Duch.) and pepper (Capsicum frutescens L. var. longum Bailey) are 7 vegetables preferred by Chinese. Furthermore, coriander (Coriandum sativum L.), welsh onion (Allium fistulosum L. var. giganteum Makino) and garlic (Allium sativum L.) were selected as condiments to improve the taste of space crew.

The researchers will do a further study about the agronomic characteristics of the chosen crops.

To obtain phosphorus in the phosphorus-deficient soil, I recommend to plant Chickpea (Wouterloud et al. 2004), white lupin and faba bean (Liu, Tang, and Li, 2016) as a source of food and increase the soil fertility. Don't forget to do an intercropping also (Xue et al. 2016).

Reference:
1.) https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 … 8.28893.f6
2.) https://dx.doi.org/10.1093%2Faobpla%2Fplw058
3.) https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcv182

Thank you SpaceNut for the welcome. I am a new member in this forum. What I will share in this forum are my insights related to Plant Physiology aspect, but I can't share related to the engineering aspect.

We need to mimic the closed system environment similar to the Biosphere 2. But, we should create in a smaller scale. We need to start from small domes. I recommend caverns but there is no technology that could be transported in Mars. A greenhouse is good but isn't dangerous if duststorm will happen in the colony? I suggest that the growth chamber for crop is better inside the room than planting it in a dome type. As a source of light, I recommend to use LED and the light recipe is based on the study of Massa and Mickens of KSC. In planting a vine crop like potatoes and stringbean, we should follow the study of Massa and Mitchell. To make the light energy from LED will use efficiently.

SpaceNut, thanks for sharing this 5 candidate bacteria which possibly thrive in Mars.

Talking about a nutrient solution, it is not reliable to bring a nutrient solution to space. What to bring in Mars are 2-3 years supply of different types of mineral salt. This mineral salts will be used to make a nutrient solution like Hoagland's nutrient solution for hydroponics. You can prepare a nutrient solution on Mars. Preparing a nutrient solution is based on millimolar. Future Martian settlers assigned in hydroponics system must learn how to prepare this kind of solution. Second, settlers will know how to manage the amount of nutrient solution for the specific crops by diluting the full-strength nutrient solution into half-strength or quarter-strength. Just to save a nutrient solution. Plus, supplemented with the specific wavelength and photon flux density of light by using LED, to improve the growth. Third, what I worry was if you will use a Martian soil for planting without deep study about the physicochemical properties. It is dangerous for the settlers because of the presence of radiation. Once we used Martian soil with the presence of radiation, the plants will affect its growth and harm the human once they eat a crop exposed in Martian soil with radiation.

I am looking for an update about the planned space probe to Mars which will be used to study the deep surface of Mars.

P.S.: To make an organic soil, human manure mixed with compost of dead plant materials is recommended. Addition of earthworm in compost will help to speed up the decomposition and help to increase the microflora of composts and humic acid content. To fix atmospheric nitrogen, you can plant leguminous crops in organic soil you make to increase the nitrate and ammonium in soil, amended with Rhizobium sp. to enhance the nodulation and nitrogen fixation. There is no Rhizobium sp. in space. So, we need to bring a pure culture of the said bacteria for inoculation.

At first, I recommend a dry environment. Saving water is needed inside the colony. So, we should look for plants which are high water-use efficiency.

Indole in human feces is helpful in plants, by the way.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl … -27997.pdf

Yeah, I am interested in dwarf form. Space is limited in the greenhouse, we need to search for a dwarf variety who possessed traits like high yielding performance, water- and nutrient-use efficient, and fixed more CO2.

Thank you for sharing your thought, I will look more information about your thought about perchlorates and plants.

If you didn't prefer a genetic engineering, it will take more time to study the Martian microbes which have the ability to produce a precursor reagent for rocket fuel.

Most studies, crops are accumulators. We need to look a variety which has an ability to exclude the heavy metals in soil. Second, I am screening a biofertilizer developed by the university where I study, and to choose which types of biofertilizer will be used for plant thrive in cadmium-rich soil.

By the way, once you find soils which have the lowest levels of Cd, try to correlate your results with simulated Martian regolith that we have. Maybe someday, that's a new type of simulated Martian soil. Are you a soil scientist?