My Little Pony: My Little Pony The Martian

AMICITAS Mission Three – Mission Day 33

ARES 3 solar day 36

Transcript – Hydraulic Telegraph Switch – ESA Maltimore Center ＜-＞ ESA spacecraft AMICITAS

(Note: Standard telegraph communication techniques were used throughout/the simplified abbreviations of Moss code were translated)

AMICITAS: Amicitas calls Maltimore, over.

ESA: Maltimore calls Amicitas, over.

AMICITAS: Dragonfly – Conducting communication experiment beta program. complete.

ESA: Received, confirmed to proceed with experiment beta. On standby. complete.

AMICITAS: Dragonfly - The dragonfire teleportation spell completely disintegrated on the gas side of the life support system, leaving only a small pile of ash. complete.

ESA: Received, confirmed that the Dragon Fire Message does not work. What is the status of Experiment γ? complete.

AMICITAS: Dragonfly – Conducting communication experiments gamma scheme. complete.

ESA: Received, confirmed to proceed with experiment γ. Already on standby. complete.

AMICITAS: Dragonfly – Life support system alarms are blaring and messages cannot be decoded properly. The warning lights were flashing and I couldn't concentrate on my work.

ESA: Received, it is confirmed that the plan to cycle the spacesuit life-support system on and off does not work. complete.

AMICITAS: Dragonfly – Too much water and the home is unhappy. complete.

ESA: Disable life-support system water supply. We can rely on indicator lights to convey signals. complete.

AMICITAS: Dragonfly – Water flow from the device cannot be stopped without permanently cutting off water flow delivery. Water supplies are needed to support future food production efforts. complete.

ESA: Got it. Wait for the next experiment a before sending a signal. Communication ends.

Mission Log – Solar Day 36

Yesterday was another busy day of soil doubling work. One good thing is that I found that the ponies are quite solid. For example, Starlight, who collapsed earlier, was able to shoulder the burden again two days later. As for our current situation, everyone here needs to give their best. Partial force.

First, I decided to dig out the alfalfa sprouts I had planted earlier and separate them, which actually took me all day. Eventually I had to let the ponies and the dragon do the actual soil doubling in the rest of the settlement, because I discovered that the seedlings that had grown to two feet tall had grown huge, complex root systems that were intertwined with each other. , intertwined and intertwined, which means that it is impossible for me to separate them while preserving most of the seedlings. This is actually my pot - when I planted it, the plants were too densely spaced, and the soil was too shallow to allow them to grow freely - but this still cannot deny the results of my hard work at that time.

So the alfalfa and their roots were soaked in a large sampling bucket filled with water overnight.

Today I found a looser spacing suitable for growing and replanted them. In fact, under such not-so-good environmental conditions, it was beyond my expectation that they could grow like this.

The ultimate goal of growing these crops is not for food. Due to the nitrogen-fixing bacteria contained in their roots, these plants can be used in the short term to improve soil quality in residential areas or, if feasible, in caves. I'm not sure the alfalfa seeds the ponies brought in their food packs had this bacteria. Logically speaking, as long as the seedlings can survive, it means that nitrogen-fixing bacteria should exist, but I feel that it is better to prepare with more hands to be safer. Of course I also know that alfalfa plants will naturally inhibit the germination of similar seeds around the soil, but I am only going to plant these seedlings next to the seeds for a few days - this is to leave a rich nitrogen-fixing environment for the alfalfa seedlings. A friendly growth environment for bacteria.

But one more thing besides that, these alfalfas are seed plants. As long as I have one potato, I can find a way to grow more; but our alfalfa seed inventory is limited. I did the math and found that the crops we have now can probably be grown on less than an acre; and if we could actually cultivate an acre of land on Mars, we would be the first botanyists after George Washington Carver and Merlin. Three major pioneering achievements have been recorded in history. However, the prerequisite for such a good thing to happen is that all the seeds can survive and no accidents will occur that will cause the plants to die.

So if something happens to our precious seeds, we have to come up with a backup plan to restart the farm. If both the settlement and the cave farm go away at the same time, we're done - and not just in the food sense. But if something happens to one of them, we still have a chance to control the situation and restart planting with an unaffected farm as a source of soil-provided we still have seeds by then.

That said, I would allow the existing alfalfa to bloom. Normally you wouldn't want to do this because the best balance of nutrients and digestibility in the alfalfa plant occurs when the first buds begin to open. After that the plant will start to form more woody fibers and digestion will become more difficult.

Alfalfa requires insect pollination, but it is known that there are no insects on Mars. The only tools we had at hand were the geology kit, my medical supplies, and the swabs from the ponies' first aid kits. (Although I'm not sure I can accept a cotton swab held in a pony's mouth...) When these plants enter the flowering stage, we have to live a few days of extremely boring days, busy transferring pollen from one small flower to the other. On the other one, I hope the pistil and stamens can look at each other. After four weeks - each plant will have sprouted many seeds!

Take a good look! I was actually thinking of a backup plan. This means I have met my basic survival needs. This should be the first time that I really felt so confident, and I even began to believe that I could get through this difficulty! So far so smooth sailing!