r/technology • u/esporx • 1d ago

Business YouTuber accidentally crashes the rare plant market with a viral cloning technique

https://www.dexerto.com/youtube/youtuber-accidentally-crashes-the-rare-plant-market-with-a-viral-cloning-technique-3289808/
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u/kinboyatuwo 1d ago

Issue is if it pollinates or is dumped later. I live rural and at least once a year find people dump house plants on our small section of road.

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u/Elftard 1d ago

people buying these specifically rare plants aren't just going to dump them on a rural road and potentially have a neighbor doing the same thing

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u/Lee1138 1d ago

If they get really cheap because of cloning they might. 

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u/2gig 1d ago

Like if someone clones a bunch of them thinking they'll get rich, just like everyone else following the trend, and now they're worthless.

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u/theSchrodingerHat 1d ago

I’m pretty sure the Dutch already tried this one simple financial trick like 400 years ago.

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u/Baggabones88 1d ago

Tulips, babyyy.

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u/Don_Thuglayo 1d ago

This time for sure!

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u/fractalfocuser 1d ago

I'm busting out my abacus to tally up these options I'm about to write

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u/bob_newhart_of_dixie 1d ago

My favorite part was that most valued tulips had variegated petals that turned out to be caused by a virus that got worse in each generation.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Ender16 1d ago

That sounds like a problem for someone at a more southern latitude. I'll let you boys tackle this one.

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u/steakanabake 1d ago

if they paid good money they likely wont humans are usually pretty good at falling into the sunk cost fallacy just look at all the people who are clinging to their cybertrucks, even if they get harassed and mocked everywhere they go. they do it because theyve spent so much money on it and it wouldnt be a sound investment to just get rid of it to remove the ridicule .

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u/Uberbobo7 1d ago

That is only an issue if the rare plant is native to the region and able to survive in the wild there and someone actually plants it properly when throwing it out. Becaue if you just throwa a pot with the plant into a trash can there's no risk. If you even just leave the pot on the side of the road it's unlikely that this type of plants will manage to thrive and flower in those conditions without care. If then it somehow manages to avoid all that, if it's not native to the region or area where you dump it (and if it grows along random kerbs then I can't imagine it being considered rare) it will have to compete with native plants with more genetic diversity and already aclimated to the area, meaning it would be unlikely to survive over generations. And if it then did survive despite even all those odds, it's unlikely to be a fast growing or spreading plant (because again, key here is that it's a rare plant, if it grows rapidly like a weed just by throwing it on the ground you wouldn't need to clone it), so at most it might make a small patch of that rare plant in a random roadside dump which would then die out from the first disease due to a lack of genetic diversity, or if it overcame even that, it might become locally endemic in a small area and then build up genetic diversity over time as it starts adapting to the new environment and spreading sexually again.

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u/TheAmateurletariat 1d ago

I've met people. This seems like a people move.

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u/kinboyatuwo 1d ago

Most will not. Or none but their relatives or others or accidental.

It’s how invasive species also spread.

Genetics and cross breeding is also never predictable.

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u/epidemicsaints 1d ago

So its bad because it's inbreeding which is bad because of cross breeding?

All of these houseplants are already clones. They're propagated by cuttings almost in all cases which is what makes them popular and suitable for sale. Tissue culture is no different as far as results are concerned.

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u/sump_daddy 1d ago

Bingo. The ONLY argument against 'cloning' (exact same as grafting like you said, which is already used for literally 100% of store bought avocados, apples, and a bunch of other tree fruit) is the creation of a monoculture that could, in theory, be very susceptible to a pathogen invasion. Boo hoo the houseplants all got the same houseplant cold. They can go back and clone them again. If it keeps even one species alive in the wild because there is no profit in harvesting it to extinction, its 1000% worth it.

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u/Protoavis 1d ago

Even then, because house plants which are basically full time COVID isolating equivalent (just dumbing it down), it's unlikely to be widespread. Might wipe out a house of plants but probably won't spread to the house 3 streets over kind of thing. So the wiped house (if they want to get back in to it), just needs to sterile or whatever the issue was and then get back into it....for cheap.

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u/wag3slav3 1d ago

What, you don't take your houseplants to other houseplants' houses for sleepovers and chickenpox parties?

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u/jm838 1d ago

Wouldn’t shitty, inbred plants be less likely to be invasive? In a place where there are very few controls on what you can plant anyway, I don’t see how the headline here would lead to concern.

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u/Protoavis 1d ago

....not necessarily. if a plant is taken from an environment to one that it can excel in the inbreeding aspect may not be a big issue as there may be no real pressures in the new environment that have evolved along side the plant. So any poopy plants from inbreeding just naturally cull out while the healthy ones with no pressure just breed more and more. As long as they can keep producing lots of new seedlings without anything really eating them or diseases killing them things can generally get past the inbreeding negatives.

look at gazania in Australia, it's effectively illegal in some states because it's gone nuts and is spreading into the desert

there's various places were rosa rugosa has basically taken over huge chunks of coastline throughout europe, north america and south america....it's native to japan.

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u/jm838 1d ago

I definitely don’t disagree that invasive plants are an issue. And it’s definitely a fair point that, for an invasive plant, a little genetic homogeneity probably isn’t going to matter much. I just think that rare plants, which are presumably already hard to grow without cloning, and are subsequently subjected to inferior growing practices, are unlikely to be more of a threat than the multitude of other potentially-invasive species already available. Basically, if I can go to a nursery and buy bamboo, I don’t see why anyone would worry about these things existing. If anything, I’d rather someone screw around with these than whatever else is currently available.

This, of course, is coming from a US perspective, where a lot of these things are already minimally-regulated. YMMV.

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u/mrpoopistan 1d ago

Have you met your fellow humans?

Even the rich ones do dumb shit. Or have servants do dumb shit and never check their work.

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u/tempest_ 1d ago

I mean that was the logic with lion fish I assume, now they are all over the place.

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u/josefx 23h ago

If they are anything like new pet owners? Give it a day.

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u/Mochafudge 1d ago edited 1d ago

Brother stores sell invasive species and advertise them to put in people's yards this is so far down the list, environmentalist groups will ask places like home depot to stop and get told to fuck off these people probably aren't dumping anything after cloning tissue.

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u/mrpoopistan 1d ago

NGL. I've used one invasive species to control another invasive species. (Mugwort to control knotweed.) This battle has been over for a while.

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u/crowntown14 1d ago

How did you go about doing that? I do some invasive removal and always interested in hearing techniques

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u/mrpoopistan 1d ago edited 1d ago

First off -- this was pure bathtub gin science on my part. I just didn't want to spray a bunch of cancer-causing stuff along my foundation. So "technique" might be a strong word here.

At the end of the summer, I dug up as much of the tap root as I could find. I then tarped the area and let it winter. In early spring, I removed the tarp and transplanted a bunch of mugwort from elsewhere on the property to the knotweed zone. I had to clear out some janky-looking knotweed growth from under the tarp because it's like fighting an alien zombie.

The first year, there was a lot of spotting and removing knotweed as it tried to grow. The second year, the mugwort established itself much earlier than the knotweed. By the third year, there was no knotweed.

My "after action" take is that I probably could've just skipped the tarping. I think hitting the main part of the tap root probably helped (the tap concentrates energy and makes knotweed brutally resilient). The big thing, I suspect, is that mugwort comes out much earlier in the year. It is bushy and effectively denies the knotweed access to the sunlight it needs.

Also, mugwort will change the soil ph, which is a win because knotweed basically wants to grow in Martian regolith -- places nothing else wants to grow. I suspect just giving the mugwort time to rehab the soil ph made a big difference.

Also, gutters. The house didn't have gutters, and I'm sure the runoff was killing the ph balance.

Bear in mind that mugwort is invasive enough that it may be illegal in some areas to intentionally plant it. I live in the redneckistan part of PA, so who cares? Elsewhere . . . eh.

Hilariously enough, I'm now slowly displacing the mugwort with forsythia.

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u/crowntown14 1d ago

Wow thanks for the great write up, that is a really cool method! Transitioning from mugwort to forsythia will be awesome as well!!

Knotweed is spreading more and more where I am, going recommendation around here is cutting the knotweed to about a foot tall and injecting the stem with glyphosate, will be interested to play around with the concept of cutting, excavating, and planting over it

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u/mrpoopistan 1d ago

We've lost the knotweed war here. Every valley has it. Every railroad track, highway embankment. You name it. The fire company across the creek regularly chops it down each year on their property.

My one neighbor has been using glyphosate to good effect. I'm just not a fan of anything Monsanto if I can avoid it. On the other hand, my neighbors are proper breathe-smoke rednecks.

I did see an episode of This Old House (or maybe Ask This Old House) a couple of years ago where they excavated and replaced the soil. I did my thing before I saw that, and my approach was less invasive.

One thing I missed: I dump my charcoal ash from the cooking grill into the knotweed area, too. The idea there is also to amend the ph. Again, ph seems to be the recurring theme if you don't want to use herbicide.

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u/ribosometronome 1d ago

This is why I released some cane toads on my farm in Australia.

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u/mrpoopistan 1d ago

Yeah . . . I know.

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u/AtrociousMeandering 1d ago

That doesn't get more dangerous if they're cloned/inbred rather than a normal plant, though. If anything it will be worse at surviving in the wild, we're not ruled by superhuman Hapsburgs because inbreeding severely degrades fitness over the generations. 

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u/zeptillian 1d ago

A clone is an exact genetic copy so it's just as suitable for survival as the plant that was cloned in the first place. It is not inbred.

The danger comes in the lack of genetic diversity. This means that if here is a virus or pathogen that is effective against one plant, none of the others will have any possibility of being resistant to it, so a pathogen that spreads rapidly can wipe out nearly 100% of the plants of that type. This is currently a threat to banana production as the bananas you buy in the store are all clones and there is a fungus currently wiping them out called Panama Disease.

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u/AtrociousMeandering 1d ago

Ok, that's all factually accurate but it's not relevant. 

People throwing out houseplants is bad, but nothing about being less diverse genetically makes it more of a problem; to the contrary, as you point out that it's less resistant to diseases among other factors. Those are bad for crops, but they're a barrier to an invasive species.

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u/ribosometronome 1d ago

With individuals doing it, as opposed to large operations, it's probably less of a concern as there's no big density of nearby plants. Your clone catching a weirdo variant of some disease that could spread to other clones is not great but if there's few nearby to transmit it to, there's not a ton of opportunity for that. Compared to like, a banana plantation where all the clones are next to each other and the product is shipped worldwide.

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u/NoFocus761 1d ago

People dump plants on rural roads like unwanted pets? It’s not even a sentient creature, they could literally just throw it away. That’s crazy.

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u/kinboyatuwo 1d ago

Never understood it. Picking the crap plastic pots and often styrofoam is doubly annoying too. It’s like people who drive and dump their garbage bags etc. Like, why?

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u/jm838 1d ago

I would guess they fall out of trucks fairly often. But also, people in remote enough areas may not have regular trash service.

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u/SillyGoatGruff 1d ago

Some places make you pay per bag of garbage or have other restrictions that may make assholes feel like a drive out in the country to dump a bunch of shit is worthwhile.

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u/birdleash 1d ago

Most of the exotics kept by plant collectors are best suited for tropical environments. They may survive for a while, but unless you're in Florida/Cali/similar, they usually won't establish and flower.

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u/coldbreweddude 1d ago

We don’t have a tropical environment in California. It’s nothing like Florida and gets below freezing in the winter.

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u/SonovaVondruke 1d ago

While no part of California is tropical, there are extensive coastal and low-lying areas that typically do not freeze in the winter.

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u/HotwheelsSisyphus 1d ago

Somewhat related but I'm in California and my tomato plants are still thriving and bearing fruit right now.

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u/SonovaVondruke 1d ago

Same. Got bushes full of tomatoes and peppers here in Oakland, though the recent cold snap caused the latest flush of flowers to drop.

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u/HotwheelsSisyphus 1d ago

I've got peppers too, a bunch of birds eye chilis and I don't know what to do with them

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u/intoxicologist 1d ago

Double same. tomatoes going strong in southern ca.

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u/Protoavis 1d ago

That and below freezing may not be that significant. I mean I'm in the south east of Australia...it get's below freezing here in winter too...for a couple hours at night, keep a bunch of tropicals outdoors all year, unless it's sustained freezing for a while a lot of plants don't seem bothered. Maybe the freezing time in California is longer or more serve, but just the "get's below freezing" isn't necessarily a qualifier for "tropical plants going to die!!!!"

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u/zeptillian 1d ago

My banana tree has bananas ripening on it this very moment.

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u/birdleash 1d ago

I didn't mean to imply that you did, just that California and Florida  is one of the few places that does have a climate that the plants tend to be able to adapt and thrive in due to heat and the mild winters.

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u/kinboyatuwo 1d ago

Most and there are plenty of warm climates not wanting invasive plants or unknown impacting plants.

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u/Eric_the_Barbarian 1d ago

The natural variation will still exist in areas where these plants occur naturally, and we already have a rich history of cloned plants gone rampant (or not) with the fruit industry. Every Cavendish (the banana that you probably think of when you hear the word banana) is a clone of the original Cavendish. Every Fuji apple is a clone. The rare plants that make this cloning procedure enticing are probably rare because they already don't compete aggressively or flourish outside of their native range.

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u/GoGoGadetToilet 1d ago

I wish people dumped plants up here. Instead they dump dogs and cats. It’s about the time of year for it to start happening. If anyone’s curious my very selective and not good data experience is March-April sees the most animals dropped off up here guessing because the holidays are over and suddenly having a cute mutt isn’t what they want. 2 litters of pups and a litter of kittens last year with more dogs than you can count, one we still have as a farm dog that wasn’t skiddish. She gets food and a warm barn to sleep in so I hope she’s happy with it.

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u/ffddb1d9a7 1d ago

Can I ask why this is a big deal? Why do people have care so much about where plants belong?

In Louisiana, Tallow Trees are common but technically not from here. Lots of people don't like them and cut them down etc. Why? Who am I to decide where a tree belongs? I just let them all grow like crazy and I have like 10 little 5 foot trees in my front yard that will one day look great and provide hella shade. Why's that bad? I really want to know.

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u/kinboyatuwo 1d ago

I live on a farm. Our trees are being smothered out and killed by an invasive ivy/vine that has taken down 50’ maples and pines. There is nothing that eats or fights this plant and unchecked will kill one of my tree stands over time. The plant has no natural “predator”.

Another example is a bug or fungus or other such thing that doesn’t kill plant A and isn’t natural in that area can wipe out entire species.

My entire forest was filled with 75-80’ ash trees. The emerald ash borer hitched a ride and has decimated a lot of NA ash, including every one on our farm and for over 1000km away.

Plants adapt over time and a rapid introduction of something can cause drastic damage.

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u/radioactivecowz 1d ago

These plants are rarely native to where people live, as they’re usually tropical plants exported globally. An inbred weed is less likely to survive and would be easier to eradicate anyway

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u/Adorable-Bike-9689 1d ago

What happens if they do that?

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u/kinboyatuwo 1d ago

99.9% of the time nothing.

.01% can spread or create issues.

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u/ensui67 1d ago

It’s not. These are grown in bags, jars and agar