Plant Tissue Culture @home
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Plant Tissue Culture @home
( @scottyreal my apologies for linking you twice in a week on the same topic but I genuinly think this might be something you’d be interested in if you haven’t seen it yet.)
Hello,
just to get everything in one place and a little addition plus a couple of my 2cents.
There is a yt channel called “Plants in Jars”. They do plant tissue culture at home. They have tutorials about basics and low bugdet, beginner friendly setups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U45CuHPDN6c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWVjYbvsIaA
They do NOT do cannabis and I’m sad to hear a little complaint in their latest video about people bugging them about it. However they are kind enough to send us to the instagram account of “tissueculturedemon666” cause they do exactly what we’d like to see: plant tissue culture with cannabis.
https://www.instagram.com/tissueculturedemon666/
personally I don’t intend to do plant tissue culture at my home any time soon and I don’t have any experience with it. I merely write this to share the information (yt randomly recommended “Plants in Jars” to me and I couldn’t stop watching). But there are some thoughts I’d like to share and discuss.
the obvious #1: plant tissue culture can be a way to save your genetics if you are dealing with viroids or diseases but for the common home grower it won’t be for a very long time. As I understand it if you have a infected (tested positive) plant and you want to save the genetics you’d have to take as much tissue samples as possible under the highest possible hygenic precautions. the ideal sample in this case consists of as few cells as possible. just enough to get a new plant growing. you grow them a couple of months until you can take samples of them to test them for the viroid and you hope that at least one of your samples doesn’t has it in it. the idea is to clone the infected plant from a part that the viroid hasn’t reached yet. that’s why tissue culture is so expensive when you deal with a viroid and try to save the genetics. and that’s why I don’t think whis will happen in any home grow any time soon.
#2 tussue culture is not just done with small plants or a small scrap of cells. implications and possibilities. lets say you take clones: put them in tissue culture for a month and then take them out and let them root in your media (solo cup or whatever) for a month and have them on point for the next run. instead of having to restrain them/hold them back (struggling with words here, my english, apologies) for a month and then kinda nurse them back for a month. might be worth a try for some people.
OR think one grow further ahead: keep your mothers in tissue culture, start your clones in tissue culture but the clone you take today isn’t intended for the next run but the one after that. admittedly that’s a wild idea – keeping another generation in your grow – but it comes down to deatils. how much space and controlled environment and energy do you need to keep a mother and clones. clones not just rooting but then in solo cups or bigger pots as well vs keeping a mother and 1 generation of clones in tissue culture plus 1 generation in solo cups but not bigger than that. they’d only get a bigger pot when they get to the flower room.
my plant count is 3, so this way is no help to me. but if you are allowed a small number of plants in flower and a small number of plants within a certain hight and a number of plants smaller than that (as seedlings or rooting clones) this would be something I’d take a look at.
I’m not very creative or logical when it comes to things like this. I’m sure there are people who can think of another way or two to integrate a form of tissue culture in a perpetual grow cycle that might be advantageous.
#3 long term storage of genetics other than keeping a full mother (or more) in a controlled environment room. lets say you’d like to keep the genetics but you know you wont grow it within the next months/year/years. just keep a number of smaller-than-usual-clones samples growing in case some of them fail and be aware that you can’t just take a cut, let it root and send it to flower. you’d need to know a couple of months in advance that you want to grow this strain and have to grow it accordingly. my guess would be that you might be able to keep more genetics alive in the same room or need less room and thuss less energy to keep them?
again it comes down to the details. what are the costs, what effort does it actually take and is it less or a (to you) more preferable/suiting kind of effort. If your thing is organic and organic only none of this is for you, no problem. If you like to be in your garden and be with you plants this probably won’t appeal to you whatsoever. But if you are more the laboratory kind of person (and I kind of am, a bit at least) this might be very intersting for you regardless of possible downsides.
#3 just don’t be afraid of plant tissue culture. rocket science it aint. it might not be for everyone but if you are able to keep a clean grow on point repeatedly, I think you have what it takes. the rest -as always- is getting used to it, getting some experience and the willingness to do so. I’d expect a high failure rate at the start of the journey, that’s part of the journey.
earlier this week I said: “Give it a decade or so and everyone will be doing tissue culture at home” sure, I wouldn’t put money one the decade and it won’t be everyone but within the next couple of years I expect more home grower to experiment/play around with this and then we will see/hear results and pros and cons and if it’s worth the effort and I’m kinda excited about it. doesn’t matter if it becomes a legit tool for us home grower or stays as is that’s a fancy, niche way of keeping plants and for the well provided laboratories in service of companies that can afford it.
(I smoked 2 joints while writing this and a familiar voice in my head says: “Those are my thoughts but what about you? Let me know in the comments!”)
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