Ok hear me out. It's not particularly obvious to me why plants being easy to replicate suddenly destroyed the rare plant market. Surely they can't be easier to replicate than software. That hasn't seemed to put much of a dent in the software market.
This happens in software too. When open source software like GCC came out, it suddenly became much cheaper to write C code compared to when you needed a Borland Turbo C license for $150 (1990 dollars).
Basic economics. If value is based on scarcity of a resource, and you lift the bottleneck that makes the resource scarce, the value is reduced.
In the case of software, the resource is time (you could build/host/operate that software yourself, but it takes a heck of lot more time than you're willing to spend so you trade money for the product instead), and you can't reduce the scarcity of time.
>Plants in Jars admitted that, while she’s far from the first person to popularize tissue culture, her tutorials and videos explaining the method have likely been a significant driver in its growth within the plant collecting community, leading to a big change in the overall market.
Sometimes a good instructor makes all the difference in the world.
Having a pretty, intelligent, well spoken young woman present it doesn't hurt either.
And in no way do I want to take away from her insight and skill in popularizing and communicating these concepts. Clearly she is good at what she does.
I used to belong to a carnivorous plant forum. The question was raised, "WHY do carnivorous plants often die when planted in nutrient-rich (or non-poor) soils?".
One grower of Venus flytraps set aside 100's of tissue-grown clones to evaluate each theory proposed, and determined that their roots were highly susceptible to fungal attack. Presumably, they had lost this (perhaps metabolically costly) genetic defense, because they were growing in substrates that were naturally hostile to fungal growth.
Anyway, the slightly more fascinating part to me was that, for this pro grower, growing hundreds of plants on a lark was a fairly trivial exercise. I cast aside my prior image of bunny-suited lab techs with pipettes and agar jars; this was full-scale production line.
BTW: possession of wild-born Venus flytraps can result in a $500 fine per plant. Poachers load up pickup trucks with trays of them. Being caught generally means complete financial ruin.
The irony is that VFTs aren't even considered endangered, per CITES definitions. They only grow in a few counties in the US, however, so their survival is nonethless precarious and worthy of heavy-handed defense.
Ok hear me out. It's not particularly obvious to me why plants being easy to replicate suddenly destroyed the rare plant market. Surely they can't be easier to replicate than software. That hasn't seemed to put much of a dent in the software market.
This happens in software too. When open source software like GCC came out, it suddenly became much cheaper to write C code compared to when you needed a Borland Turbo C license for $150 (1990 dollars).
Basic economics. If value is based on scarcity of a resource, and you lift the bottleneck that makes the resource scarce, the value is reduced.
In the case of software, the resource is time (you could build/host/operate that software yourself, but it takes a heck of lot more time than you're willing to spend so you trade money for the product instead), and you can't reduce the scarcity of time.
I'm interested in knowing which plants can't be cultivated using this method.
For instance eyebright, while common, resists cultivation as it's a hemiparasite and requires a host plant to grow.
I highly doubt that rare plant collectors didn't know about plant tissue cultures
How did nobody try this until now?
>Plants in Jars admitted that, while she’s far from the first person to popularize tissue culture, her tutorials and videos explaining the method have likely been a significant driver in its growth within the plant collecting community, leading to a big change in the overall market.
Sometimes a good instructor makes all the difference in the world.
Having a pretty, intelligent, well spoken young woman present it doesn't hurt either.
And in no way do I want to take away from her insight and skill in popularizing and communicating these concepts. Clearly she is good at what she does.
And sharing/spreading the knowledge widely. If 1000x are doing something smart vs a few here and there, makes a huge difference in a marketplace.
The market literally depended on a monopoly of knowledge.
I used to belong to a carnivorous plant forum. The question was raised, "WHY do carnivorous plants often die when planted in nutrient-rich (or non-poor) soils?".
One grower of Venus flytraps set aside 100's of tissue-grown clones to evaluate each theory proposed, and determined that their roots were highly susceptible to fungal attack. Presumably, they had lost this (perhaps metabolically costly) genetic defense, because they were growing in substrates that were naturally hostile to fungal growth.
Anyway, the slightly more fascinating part to me was that, for this pro grower, growing hundreds of plants on a lark was a fairly trivial exercise. I cast aside my prior image of bunny-suited lab techs with pipettes and agar jars; this was full-scale production line.
BTW: possession of wild-born Venus flytraps can result in a $500 fine per plant. Poachers load up pickup trucks with trays of them. Being caught generally means complete financial ruin.
The irony is that VFTs aren't even considered endangered, per CITES definitions. They only grow in a few counties in the US, however, so their survival is nonethless precarious and worthy of heavy-handed defense.
[flagged]