This is a discussion of the possible effects of growing aliens planets on Earth and growing Earth plants on alien planets.
I can see the advantages goring crops that are hard to grow on Earth (such as many plants that require tropical climates). If we found a world with a large amount of tropical regions then growing these crops there would provide a greater supply. The opposite might be true, we might find an alien plant that grows in deserts and we transfer that to earth to be cultivated.
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We already have those, those alien plants will have the same/similliar adaptations as our own desert plants. So nothing will change, other than risking them to be an invasive species, that might carry infections that could devastate our own plants.
Maybe I should say crop. From my research into desert farming it involves growing plants that weren’t supposed to grow in the desert and sustain them with irrigation. The problem with this is that irrigation in a desert requires an unacceptably high amount of water even with drip irrigation. I’m talking about an alien crop has evolved to use the deserts natural water stores underground while having the nutrients and growth time necessary for large scale production.
Interesting question. I would imagine it would be hard to find a plant which is better adapted to earth than an earth plant. Evolution adapts plants to where they live and so living on earth, in a desert, is probably the best way of adapting.
However I guess the limiting factor for plants in deserts is probably water (plenty of light and CO2, maybe a lack of soil nutrients is also a problem). It’s possible that some other completely different tree of life could have developed to use a lot less water in it’s processes. It’s quite hard to imagine how it would work but that doesn’t mean it’s not possible.
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