COMING SOON-TISSUE CULTURE

How Does Tissue Culture Work?

 

The beauty of TC is that it is unlike conventional methods.  It allows cultivators preserve a living specimen, almost perpetually, through minimal effort and space. As a result, small pieces of plant tissue from cannabis specimens can eventually produce hundreds of identical clones.

All tissue cultures start life as a small cutting from a sample.  The tissue sample is trimmed and goes through a crucial sterilization process. Once cleaned, the plant tissue goes in a dense nutrient culture which is typically an agar gel containing a carefully crafted nutrient, hormone and sugar mixture. The tissue culture therefore controls the sample. Different hormone mixtures will trigger various stages of development for the tiny culture.

The culture can technically remain in a period of indefinite purgatory, until a time when the grower wishes to work with the sample again. Through the introduction of new hormones and nutrient-rich growing solutions, a cultivator can trigger growth, root development, and multiplication. When the plant is large enough to multiply, it is ready to be trimmed into literally hundreds of separate yet precisely cloned individuals.

These hundreds of samples follow a similar course until they are large enough to enter into a phase of hardening off and ready for planting. From one small tissue sample, a well-organized cultivator can potentially create hundreds of perfect clones! This is also without any contamination from the mother.

PROS OF TISSUE CULTURE PROPAGATION

 

The small containers used for micro propagation don’t take up a lot of space. As a result, plants are not susceptible to mold and disease like regular clones. This is because grower attention and sterile conditions limit exposure to pests and pathogens. Micro propagation provides a better alternative to cloning because one could place thousands of samples in a very small space, which requires minimum maintenance. This is favourable when compared to conventional cloning methods where mother plants and clones require significant space and upkeep. As a result, conventional cloning methods require a lot of energy and resources.  Tissue culture, however, does not.

 

CONS OF TISSUE CULTURE PROPAGATION

 

The main downside of micro propagation is that it’s not something for your everyday small-scale grower. Micro propagation requires an extremely sterile environment, expertise and total temperature, humidity, and light control. Even though it’s absolutely possible to do, it requires a lot of skill and knowledge. Because of this, developing clones from a mother plant might just be the easiest way of cloning for the novice. However, with time, cannabis technology will evolve and perhaps make it very manageable for average ganja-Joe’s to micro propagate their plants!

 

THE FUTURE

 

This technology does not only show promise for cannabis enthusiasts who strive for the highest quality weed possible, but for the human species in general. All kinds of plants can be micro propagated and selected based on their desired traits. Imagine making 10,000 copies of the most delicious pest and mold-resistant avocados in no time, and selecting the best out of these 10,000 to further strengthen the genetics. That would be absolutely groundbreaking, unless of course we start genetically modifying plants with great precision, which would completely change the nature of farming. Either way, micro propagation of cannabis is here, and it will likely be more prevalent in the future.