I'd suspect it's a "tack on" experiement. They were doing a bunch of experiments and wanted to see if a plant could even germinate in a low gravity environment.

I'd suspect it's a "tack on" experiement. They were doing a bunch of experiments and wanted to see if a plant could even germinate in a low gravity environment. Now that they know it can germinate, it is worth the money to see if i t could last longer.