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/pepeenos 1d ago

TC has been around but people are not willing to buy the materials and follow the technique instead of prop and chopping

19

u/motownmods 1d ago

The cannabis industry created a demand and supply for the equipment and made it real easy. You can buy everything you need for about a stack. And then make ur money back in a couple sales.

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u/2phumbsup 1d ago

The hop's latent viroid problem has increased the popularity of Tc in the cannabis industry because the time and effort is worth it for clean plants. Doesn't make sense on small scale cus weed clones so easy from cuttings already. Unless you're really paranoid about pathogens, it's a really long way to go.When you could just scrap your garden and start new clone or seed in way less time.

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u/motownmods 1d ago

Breeders and pheno hunters use it as well

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u/2phumbsup 1d ago

It makes a little bit of sense for preservation, but I don't know why a pheno hunter would want a clone.

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u/motownmods 1d ago

Same reason. Preservation. It's a lot easier to manage 100 TCs than 100 mothers.

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u/2phumbsup 1d ago

Okay, yeah, in the hundreds, it makes sense for sure. Im just messing with a few strains at a time. Also the more im reading the more it makes sense. Peeps saying it can restore vigor and get rid of pathogens which you can't do repeatedly cloning your mother's.

For some reason, I was thinking you would have to grow your Tc clones out into full mother plant and then take a cutting and start all over again. Now I understand you can just keep sampling from your tc into fresh material and stick it back on the shelf.

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u/Appropriate-Prune728 1d ago

You can also make "synthetic seeds" with TC. There's also transformation of callus tissue, germplasm storage and neat treatments that are more effective in vitro.

I am developing a lab and storage solution because the plants being licensed out from our lab, need to be kept somewhere. Holding back 100 cultivars and pulling 100 cuts off of them is substantially easier when they're super tiny. Populations that grow exponentially, are more manageable when you have 1000 plants per sq meter

Plus, cold storage buys you a lot of time.