The tree · Biology · Happens to the world · Could be decided within 1 to 5 years
A staple crop is grown from seed to harvest off Earth
Leafy greens have been grown and eaten on the space station; calories have not. Wheat, potato, or rice grown from seed to a harvest worth eating, off Earth, is the first evidence that a site can feed itself rather than garnish shipped food, and it is a cheap, near-term step that the year of recycled food, water, and air under the settlement tier needs. Small numbers of seeds have completed a life cycle in orbit; a harvest is the next thing.
The test: what counts as it having happened
At a site off Earth (a station, the Moon, Mars, or a spacecraft), a staple crop (wheat, rice, potato, or another crop grown for its calories) is grown from seed or tuber to a harvest of at least one kilogram of edible dry grain or tuber, reported by the operating agency or company or in a peer-reviewed publication. A few plants brought to seed for a life-cycle experiment do not count; the harvest does.
Settled by: The operating agency's or company's report, or the peer-reviewed publication
The odds, by how long I live
| baselineto 2071 ± 8 | moderateto 2080 | strongto 2095 | radicalto 2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75% | 82% | 90% | 95% | 96% |
Each column is a different guess at how long I live, from current trends (baseline) to open-ended. The number is the chance this happens before that deadline, assuming everything it depends on happens first. As of 2026-09-20.
Why these numbers: Rice and wheat have completed life cycles in orbit at experiment scale and every lunar and Mars base plan includes a greenhouse, so a kilogram harvest within forty-five years is likely; the residual is that nobody bothers while shipping food stays cheap. Proposed by Claude 2026-09-20 with the node's addition, accepted by John.
What this one is worth
If this happened tomorrow and nothing else changed, the chance that I live and work off Earth by 2071 goes from 0.5% to 0.6% (+0.1 points). If it turned out no, the same number goes to 0.0% (−0.5 points).
| Longevity scenario | baseline2071 ± 8 | moderate2080 | strong2095 | radical2136 | openno deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The headline as it stands | 0.5% | 1.2% | 3.8% | 11% | 15% |
| If this settled yes now | 0.6% | 1.2% | 3.9% | 12% | 15% |
| If this settled no now | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
This is what the site says in advance, before the thing happens. When it does, the
ledger entry that records it quotes this figure beside what actually followed, so a
reader can see whether the prediction held. Worked out at the run
2026-10-11-scan by holding this step at each outcome in turn and
playing the whole tree out again, 20,000 times per
scenario. That is a throw of the dice, so a move smaller than about
0.10 points is inside the noise rather than
a finding.
The last 3 checks
Once a week the tree is read against the news, node by node, against the test above. Open a line to see what that week held. Every check ever made on this node is on the Radar page.
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2026-10-11 Ruled
No harvest of one kilogram of edible grain or tuber off Earth has been reported. The Shenzhou-23 crew collected first-generation rice seeds on Tiangong on about 2026-08-02 and a second generation is growing, with no yield weight published. On the verify claim: the 2022 Tiangong rice did complete seed to seed (six seeds sown, 59 harvested), but the CAS record says the ears matured after over 100 days, not about 120.
For me: Verify claim settled in part, so it comes to you because the scan may not edit the list: rice did complete a seed-to-seed cycle on Tiangong in 2022 (CAS, 2024-11-07 report), but the record's 'about 120 days' is not supported; CAS says over 100 days. Suggest correcting the wording to 'over 100 days' and clearing the claim. No probability move: the 2026 rice work is still seeds, not a one-kilogram harvest.
Taken off my list on 2026-10-12, by a ruling recorded on the step.
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2026-10-08 Ruled
The verify claim is settled: CAS reported in December 2022 that rice completed a seed-to-seed cycle on Tiangong (2022-07-29 to 2022-11-25, about 120 days), with six seeds yielding 59. Shenzhou-23's rice harvest was reported in August 2026 and tomatoes in March 2026, but no source gives a harvest mass near one kilogram, so the criterion is not met.
For me: Verify claim checked: the 2022 Tiangong rice seed-to-seed result (about 120 days) is confirmed by CAS, December 2022, so the claim can be cleared or reworded to cite that record (I may not edit the list). No number would move: the 2026 Shenzhou-23 rice harvest gives no mass, and the step needs at least 1 kg of edible grain or tuber.
Taken off my list on 2026-10-11, by a later scan.
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2026-10-04 Nothing new
The Tiangong two-generation rice harvest was on 2026-08-05, before the leaf window, and was a science sample collection with no reported one-kilogram edible harvest. A second wheat generation is nearing the end of its cycle but no harvest weight was reported.
Revisions
| Date | Field | From | To | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-12 | verify | One claim to check, written from memory 2026-09-20: rice completed a full seed-to-seed life cycle aboard China's Tiangong station in 2022 (about 120 days), as reported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. | The list is cleared. The claim is confirmed and now stands in the notes with its source. | The weekly scans of 2026-10-08 and 2026-10-11 checked the claim against the record and flagged it as settled (data/scans/2026-10-08.toml and 2026-10-11.toml): the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported in December 2022 that rice completed a 120-day life cycle aboard Tiangong, and its report of 2024-11-07 repeats the 120 days. The second scan read that report's 'over 100 days' as the orbital figure; it is the time the returned seeds' ears took to mature on Earth, so the claim's 120 days stands. Both scans' source addresses had moved on the CAS site; the archived copies are linked in the notes. The scan may not edit the list itself. Proposed by Claude 2026-10-12, approved by John at the merge. Words only: criterion and probabilities unchanged, and the 2026 reports give no harvest mass, so the one-kilogram test is still not met. |
Notes
Added 2026-09-20 under step 27, item 3 (docs/reviews/2026-09-19-rulings.md, ruled 2026-09-19): raised by Gemini as a missing node; a hard dependency of B-closed-loop-life-support-year-off-earth. Astra's twenty-percent-of-calories node (item 39) was declined as covered by the closed-loop node, with this leaf filling the earlier-rung slot. The one-kilogram floor is there so that a life-cycle experiment with a few plants does not resolve a node about calories. Claim checked by the weekly scans of 2026-10-08 and 2026-10-11 and cleared 2026-10-12: rice completed a 120-day seed-to-seed life cycle aboard China's Tiangong station in 2022, started 2022-07-29 in the Wentian module, six seeds sown and fifty-nine harvested in orbit, reported by the Chinese Academy of Sciences on 2022-12-07 (https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/news--archives/2022/cas-in-media/202212/t20221207_1126440.shtml) and again on 2024-11-07 (https://english.cas.cn/newsroom/news--archives/2024/cas-in-media/202411/t20241107_1130326.shtml); the 'over 100 days' in the 2024 report is the time the returned seeds' ears took to mature on Earth. The Shenzhou-23 crew collected first-generation rice seeds on Tiangong in about August 2026 with no yield weight published, and a 2026 tomato harvest was likewise reported without a mass, so the one-kilogram test is still open.
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The record itself is data/B-biology.toml in the public repository.