The 324 square foot and 16 foot tall greenhouse not only provided a welcome respite from the bitterly cold weather outside thanks to the tropical temperatures made possible by a new dedicated weather station, but also a bounty of 138 plants thriving inside its glass walls.

The prior MSU greenhouse was built in the 1970s, and was about 20 years past its life expectancy, according to Joseph Pettit, assistant professor with the MSU biology department. Pettit said the former structure suffered from leaks in the winter, and was hampered by other issues that created unideal conditions even in the summer.

“In the summertime, I couldn’t keep the temperature down. It would be like 90 degrees in here. I’d have every vent open and every fan going. I’d have swamp coolers going. I could not keep it cool. In the wintertime, we had to have extra cover on it. It allowed some light in but it definitely dimmed the light,” Pettit said. “Keeping temperature and humidity was impossible. Now, it is always this temperature in here so the plants know what to expect.”

Construction for the new greenhouse finished and opened last fall, complete with an automated system, motor controlled vents and a leak free structure which allow the 65 species of plants in the greenhouse to flourish despite the arctic temperatures outside. The plant varieties range from ferns, banana trees, a yerba mate tree, coffee plants and a number of plants used by MSU students in experiments.

Charles Crane/MDN Two banana plants soak up the rays of the setting sun on Wednesday at the Minot State University Greenhouse during an open house.

Pettit also used the greenhouse for a competition organized by NASA called “Plant the Moon” which challenged participants to grow plants in simulated lunar and Martian soil called regolith.

“A couple of professors said, ‘Sure, let’s do it.’ We got this stuff in and absolutely nothing grew,” Pettit said. “This is the heaviest soil you’ve ever seen in your life. It’s super super dense. It’s very hard for anything to grow in it.”

After a battery of tests and plenty of trial and error, Pettit said he was eventually able to grow beets and corn after washing salts from the regolith and adding organic matter to the mix. Pettit said he avoided growing potatoes, which famously was the plant grown by the fictional botanist in Andy Weir’s novel “The Martian,” because their weight made them impractical for an actual mission to the red planet.

“I did not even try them. One of the things I really wanted was to limit the weight of anything I was going to plant. Potatoes have a lot of water in them, and take up a lot of space, and would cost a lot of money to get to Mars,” Pettit said. “If I just sent seeds, they’re a very small fraction of the seeds. I can send millions of seeds for the same amount as one potato. Unfortunately, seeds are very hard to grow, but I finally was able to do it.”