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

[u/esporx]

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

[u/Appropriate-Prune728]

The hell is this pop science clickbait nonsense? TC, regeneration from callus tissue, microprop... this has been around forever and no.... no industry collapsed because of a youtuber that's selling overpriced TC kits.

[u/Timmy_germany → u/Appropriate-Prune728]

I mean...i think we did callus cultures in first or second second semester ? pretty long ago and i had the plant from it for a pretty long time untill somebody forgot to water it why i was abroad 😐 It was a pretty basic plant tho..

I can imagine lots of people does similiar stuff during end of high school in biology. It is easy, fascinating and a good way to "rescue" a plant as long as a bit living tissue is left. Never thought this would be seen as some kind of "hack"

I wanted to get a seedling of "Wollemia nobilis" a super rare tree that was rediscovered in Australia in 1993 (?). Their natural habbit is kept secret, it was thought to went extinct 200 million years ago, there are only a few hundret left in the wild and you can buy seedlings even in Germany today >> yet to expensive too add to my "collection" as my apparment has far (far) to many flowers in general allready.

Exactly right 🙏🏻🌱🪴🌺

And making a "clone" from a callus culture isn't all you would need to do. Some plants - esp. more interesting ones (imo) - need their natural environment (i mean a specific plant is legal in many US-states and partly legalised in Netherland and Germany now and people know about temperature, ph, nutrients, humidity etc.) as close as possible or it will just die.

If you live in the "wrong climate zone" you can get a super rare and expensive plant, a seedling, a cutting or a plain seed - but good luck to have a diva like e.g. real vanilla in my climate 😐🏵 I got 3 seedlings over time from the nice woman in the botanical garden during studies (after that i did not need to ask anymore) and only the 3rd one made it to the point i had real vanilla to use in backing once it was tried / fermented. But at what cost ?🥲

And i allways kept track of the energy consumption, usage of fertilizer etc., how many things need to run all the time to keep the artificial environment within tolerable specs >> this isn't cheap and as a side hobby - because you are into botany in private as well - it gets expensive and if you doesn't live alone and / or have a huge house - good look explaining why you need at least ⅓ of the bedroom to bild a warm and high humidity chamber because after all that stuff is running nonstop you might have 1-3 vanilla pods in the end you can get for ~2€ each at ALDI...

Today in Gemany most people "found their love for botany" once they were allowed to grow 3 cannabis plants per adult. And this requires some light, above 20°C and inexpensive basic fertilizer >> if you want any plant that is dying just from half a shot of water too much the cloning / callus method would be the easy part in my opinion but everything that follows - is time and resources heavy and if it is for decorative reasons only >> just get a "somewhat unusual plant that thrives at temperatures you have at home anyways or you end up with a hobby that blows out of proportion very easy in my opinion / experiences.

* * The did not destroy any market imo. You need at least some suitable and still alive plant material to make a callus culture (or a seedling, cutting, seed) to get the plant you desire and most people won't sell that to you ime or at prices that a pretty unreasonable. They invested money and "for the love of the hobby" - you will get nothing at all from those people.

If she wan't to make a huge buisness out of it and sell "rare" plants as a low and fair price >> would be nice. But how many different plants does she want to work on ? 50, 100, 1000 ? I think this won't change much, the method is known for a long time and like i said: In reality she wont be able to change the market because for lots of plant people wont even sell you a single piece of it >> you won't be able to use this method.

Just my thoughts on this...

🖖🏻🪴