Tissue Cultured Marijuana ? You Bet !

[ilynnboy]

Can you please tell me more of sterile test tube cutting storage?

Could I keep ot in stasis for say 3 months?

That sounds a lot more doable than culturing.

Granted you don't break down to DNA level, but that would suffice.

I want a Long term storage solution for viable plant material.

Which would be beat done by Culture?

Edited October 20, 2014 by ilynnboy

[ilynnboy]

Basically

I want to keep this plant forever.

.

One of my best ever.

[trichcycler]

You're gonna love this man.

search tissue culture test tubes, pre filled, carrot culture mix

you'll spend fifty bucks and they will come cold.

when you get those, put them in your crisper drawer

and then send me a private message quickly. don't

agitate the tubes.

you owe me big time, maybe even a "new favorite" someday....?? .

If sterilized it will remain in stasis for years with a cfl bulb.

 

culturing the plant would give you tens of thousands of potential copies to gamble with rather than one or two with a stored cutting.

culturing would give opportunity to produce roots, or chutes, or divide exponentially. If was legal to ship these stored clones imagine the revenue a slick dude could make with premium cuts. I'd own huge bouquets of clones in lighted shelving displays.......ahhh, fantasy

[Restorium2]

Tissue culture is so interesting that grassmatch talks with himself about it over at roll it up. As you can see he's pharmacopia and grassmatch in the same thread. Who does that?

 

http://www.rollitup.org/t/marijuana-tissue-culture-success.503685/page-11

[trichcycler]

oooooooweeeee, a regular Nancy Drew over here wishes to somehow discredit me ????  glad you finally learned to use google.

 

there are better things to read there like this, at least keeping in line with the subject matter.

 

It sounds more like a child's toy, but glow-in-the-dark bunnies are now a living, breathing reality -- and researchers say they could help bring affordable drug therapies to developing countries.

In a collaborative effort between the University of Hawaii at Manoa and two universities in Turkey, scientists created two transgenic (genetically modified) bunnies by inserting a gene from jellyfish DNA into a rabbit embryo.

Furry and white in normal lighting, the pair glows bright green under black light. These are the first transgenic rabbits; transgenic mice, cows, goats, chickens and pigs have been successfully produced.

"Because I've been around it so long, it's almost become second nature," UH Manoa's Stefan Moisyadi told CBSNews.com. "But the rabbits were sensational, they were glowing so bright that even though their fur [was thick], it was even shining right through the fur."

The rabbits were conceived via in vitro fertilization (IVF). The researchers first extracted embryos from an adult female rabbit. Next, they inserted plasmids into the embryos, in a process similar to that developed for human IVF by Moisyado's mentor, Dr. Ryuzo Yanagimachi.

Founder of the school's renowned Institute for Biogenesis Research, Yanagimachi famously cloned adult mice in 1998, and was an early pioneer in the development of IVF. Originally, IVF was passive, as scientists had to wait for the sperm to swim to the egg. Yanagimachi further revolutionized it by developing an active process in which the sperm is inserted directly into the egg. The method is now used in fertility clinics around the world.

To transfer genes of one species into the embryos of another, Moisyadi essentially swaps the sperm from Yanagimachi's method with plasmids. The plasmids contain enzymes, or transgenes, from the jellyfish DNA as well as a tool, called a piggyBAC, that transfers the transgenes. The piggyBAC is designed to disintegrate once it's completed its role. The embryos are then injected back into the mother. The entire process takes less than half an hour, but there's no way of knowing the outcome until the mother has gone through a regular pregnancy.

The fluorescent protein from the jellyfish DNA has no use aside from telling researchers if their experiment was a success. Basically, they wait until the offspring are born, then flick off the lights. If the pups glow under black light, it signals success. "It's just a marker, it has no value whatsoever," explains Mosiyado.

While cool to look at, there's more to these transgenic animals than meets the eye.

Now that they have proven the success of active transgenesis in rabbits, the researchers will start to use the method to inject other genes. These will be genes that produce proteins that are used in common drugs. The proteins will be present in their milk and extracted from there. The host animals don't benefit, or suffer, from the introduction of the genes. The beneficiaries are people who need access to low-cost drugs.

"You can express the protein that's made from the gene and generate large quantities of it easily and cheaply. Think of a factory built under sterile conditions, it costs a heck of a lot of money. Try doing it in Uganda, countries like that. It is less expensive to purify something from the milk."

The animals can, in essence, replace the costly labs and the cell culture methods through which proteins are currently engineered. They can function as "biofactories."

"Once you create the animals that have a gene in them that they can't make, a bioprotein, you can breed these animals and perpetuate it," Moisyadi explains.

In 2009, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug ATryn, created using protein from a transgenic goat, for patients with hereditary antithrombin deficiency (HD) -- a rare blood clotting disease that afflicts about 1 in 5,000 Americans. The European Union had approved the drug in 2006. GTC Biotherapeutics in Charlton, Mass. developed ATryn using protein derived from a herd of 30 transgenic goats.

Scientists at AgResearch in New Zealand are using proteins derived from the milk of transgenic cows to develop drug therapies for multiple sclerosis. The cows were not fluorescent and did not glow in the dark -- that was only used to test Moisyado's method. Rather, they were created using transfection, or the introduction of DNA into a cell. The process takes about seven days in culture.

Milk or meat products from transgenic animals are prohibited from entering the animal or human food supply. They are intended strictly for scientific purposes.

Moisyadi continues to work on the technical aspects of the active transgenesis procedure, hoping to improve the success rate to at least 50 percent. In the rabbit experiment, the method was 25 percent successful, with the gene catching on in two of the litter's eight bunnies. Other methods pale in comparison, with rates of less than 5 percent.

This rabbit experiment was actually a sideline project, while the researchers wait on the birth of the world's first transgenic sheep. Earlier this month, they injected 68 sheep embryos, and 10 have taken. But sheep gesticulate for about four months. Rabbits only take about a month.

They are expecting the first of the lambs in November, but won't know if the process was a glowing success until they flick on the black light.

[trichcycler]

anyways, that grassmatch is not me I assure you. but I really dug the name, and ran with it. I don't have dual (restoroium:2") registrations anywhere online in 35 yrs.

 

Now, can you taste that poop in your mouth? that's the taste of your own embarrassment. go get your shinebox foolish old twit. while you're down there, grow up a bit.

 

blowing on my candle does not make yours shine brighter.

[trichcycler]

anyways, that grassmatch is not me I assure you. but I really dug the name, and ran with it. I don't have dual (restoroium:2") registrations anywhere online in 35 yrs.

 

Now, can you taste that poop in your mouth? that's the taste of your own embarrassment. go get your shinebox foolish old twit. while you're down there, grow up a bit.

 

blowing on my candle does not make yours shine brighter.

[Habenero]

GM, maybe u already answered this somewhere up there but thb I get kinda lost in your technical writing. It seems well written I just don't have the background to understand it all (so it's on me   ).  What kinda medium do you culture in? Do you make your own or buy it somewhere? I'm not about to get into doing that, at least not right now. Just curious.

[trichcycler]

Commercial mixes are available, for things like carrots and tobacco, but I use my own.

It is a mixture of alginate, basal salts, sugar, hormones and water. It thickens to a gel that support the tissue.

 

When I was a kid I used jello gelatin, sugar, basal salts, and cloning powders and willow water.

[Habenero]

Commercial mixes are available, for things like carrots and tobacco, but I use my own.

It is a mixture of alginate, basal salts, sugar, hormones and water. It thickens to a gel that support the tissue.

 

When I was a kid I used jello gelatin, sugar, basal salts, and cloning powders and willow water.

Cool info. When you stick the tissue in it does it need to be on top to get air or completely inside the medium?

 

I ain't likely to try this anytime soon but I like knowing this stuff.

[trichcycler]

very good question. I place a sterilized bit/mush/blob half way into the substrate normally. But I have been successful with "suspension cultures" where the entire bit is suspended mechanically over top of the substrate. Its cool as heck watching it thrive. The bits always know where the food is, just like plants/roots.

 

my early cultures were leaf bits flatly laid atop rockwool/synthetic sponges. I once flowered one in a car wash type of sponge that wicked up the water/food it needed.

 

For clonal storage only the bottom cut stem is submerged into the gel, like normal cloning. It wont grow in there(unless told too) but will live and look healthy forever.

 

you can fart around with culturing with cloning gel, rockwool, and plant bits/roots. Literally a piece of viable root material can be planted just like a seedling. It needs to be sterilized though, and kept clean, hence the rockwool. vessel. 15 dollar sonic toothbrush, 5% bleach water, 5% of 71% rubbing alcohol is the cheapest flight out.

 

meristems are easiest,  roots are next, leaves are super cool, but come with higher failure rates, anthers are the most interesting. I was thinking about a gofundmecom to raise money for a gene gun for my holster.  I'd have talking plants by now if I had one of those 20 yrs ago ! lol

[trichcycler]

Reviving Ancient Seeds

 

I was asked to get just one female plant coaxed from a sack of improperly stored seeds. The seeds were no less than 26 years old, and I suspect were transferred from pocket, to stash, to drawer, to glove box to new houses, new people etc. I traditionally planted five in rapid rooters, and put another five under the microscope. I couldn't help but notice the fine threads of old fungus on the seeds/packaging. This is hardly avoidable without diligent storing techniques(talk bout that later).

 

After scarifying(with Halloween near and all) the first five seeds before soaking them overnight, they were planted like I normally plant ever seed here. Two cracked open but damage was evident by the discoloration of the root but I held out for hope anyways. They both sprouted, then molded, then died. Repeated this once again with similar results while I was preparing for a full blown seed culturing project. This has proven to be the most difficult for me. Starting with even a sprout or root is simple, but add a seed shuck and some details and I flopped often. If I could have sprouted them first I was sure I could get a plant soon, but was afraid of the mold. I don't know names of molds but the mold that killed those sprouts was likely the same as was found on the seeds, same looking/color anyways.

 

Before culturing the seeds(actually the contents of) everything must be sterile. I set out to sterilize the seeds in the same way I would plant material. A 5% solution of 71% alcohol mixed with (sterilized) water shaken with seeds in a sterile mason jar/lid for a half a minute or so, the transferred to another sterile shaker filled with a solution of 3% bleach with sterile water. Sterile rinses in between steps and after a final rinse straight to the sonic toothbrush with the same cleaning steps repeated.

The seeds are clean, shuck is sterile and ready to be surgically removed. Sans the techy, the innards are then cultured similar to a meristem project.

 

After some failures caused maybe by me damaging the root cap and/or radical during excising, but I did get 7 of 12 that were coaxed to sprout and they remained healthy for the duration. Note that not one seed would properly sprout and grow with traditional practice.

 

This is when I learned some things about seeds. There is trapped moisture inside the seed. Cooling/heating/ pocketing/freezing/ stashing etc causes moisture issues on the seed shell and this helps the ever present (outside of the seed)mold to thrive. Sometimes this mold goes un noticed when planting, especially wish fresh viable seed stock. when a seed is aged, abused/stored in less than desirable environments the mold is able to overcome the new plant soon after its birth. I see mold on many seeds that have come my way commercially, and most all that have come from buddy pockets.

 

After the experience I learned that the pre culture clean listed above is enough to get those old seeds to sprout healthily more often than not. I do this now for every seed I plant now and rarely experience a sprout die off regardless of seed age. Sometimes a seed is very expensive($200, seedbay, greenthumb, etc) and not worth  any risks. If I can get it to crack I can get it to flower.

 

in nature seeds are treated roughly, scarified even. The same and more molds thrive there too. Fortunately there are safeguards in nature, as well as numbers, to keep plants moving forward. some of those safeguards don't exist in our refrigerators though.

 

Everyone has their chosen method of seed storage. The best for me for years has been one of those kids zipper insulated lunch bags, a couple desiccant packs(rx/vitamin bottle dryers) and seeds in air tight packages. The danger comes when I remove the bag to choose a seed  ....-cold-warm-then cold again for thought.

Keeping them organized is a good way to minimize their exposure to house air. helps if you have a 420 chick, they sort and tidy up like its second nature.

 

My seed bag looks like a bingo tumbler !

 

peace

[trichcycler]

Male or Female sprout?

 

[trichcycler]

Can you inherit experiences? Inside the weird world of epigenetics By Susannah Locke

Ever since the age of Darwin — and especially since the discovery of DNA — scientists have thought of biological inheritance as something permanent. You inherit the genes that your parents gave you, and that's what you'll pass down to your children.

But in recent years, scientists have begun to realize that genetic inheritance may be more complicated than that.

Experiments have shown, for example, that the experiences of a parent might lead to molecular changes that aren't encoded in DNA but can still be passed down to children, affecting the health and behavior of future generations.

ONE CONTROVERSIAL STUDY SHOWED THAT MICE CAN INHERIT FEAR MEMORIES FROM THEIR GRANDFATHERS

These findings fall within a field known as epigenetics — and research in this area has turned up a few tantalizing results. Perhaps most famously, a recent study appeared to show that mice can inherit experiences of fear from their grandfathers — something traditional genetics would have suggested is impossible.

For researchers who believe that epigenetic inheritance is a real phenomenon, the implications are a big deal. "The ramifications in terms of human health are enormous," says Sarah Kimmins, an epigenetics and reproductive biology researcher at McGill University. "What you're doing and how you’re living your life is going to have consequences not just for your child but for your grandchildren."

But epigenetics remains controversial. While some researchers are making some very big claims, others think that there's a lot of weak data, hype, and wishful thinking. So here's a guide:

What is epigenetics?

Before we get to a definition of epigenetics, it's worth backing up a bit. Every organism has genes that essentially act as an instruction book for creating various traits and life functions. The human genome, for example, has about 21,000 such genes.

Some DNA contains particular instructions for building particular proteins. But other parts help direct exactly when and where those genes should build those proteins.

That guidance is crucial — it's how our genes "know" to make certain proteins for muscle cells in one part of the body and other proteins for brain cells in another, for example. The parts of DNA that give these kinds of directions essentially interact with various environmental factors to turn genes on and off.

THE EPIGENOME HELPS CONTROL HOW GENES ARE SWITCHED ON AND OFF

By the middle of the 20th century, scientists began realizing that DNA sequences weren't the only things telling genes what to do. Some instructions were also coming from the epigenome — basically a collection of other chemical markers and signals that interact with DNA and influence its activity.

Scientists have discovered that these chemical markers can also be affected by the outside environment. One good example involves bees. The difference between a queen and worker honeybee isn't their DNA sequences. Instead, larvae that end up becoming queens are fed more of a food called royal jelly, which contains ingredients that seem to regulate certain genes through epigenetic markers. In a similar fashion, scientists have found that some dietary choices in humans seem to turn cancer-related genes on or off.

Now here's the controversial part. Over the past decade, some scientists have suggested that epigenetic signals from the environment can be passed on from one generation to the next.

If that's the case, it would be a big departure from what scientists previously believed. Researchers have long known that the environment in the womb can alter fetal development. And they also have known that environmental factors, like radiation, could directly alter DNA that then got passed down. But environmental effects that only changed the epigenome — and not DNA itself — weren't thought to be heritable. (Scientists believed that these epigenetic markers were wiped clean and reset with each new generation.)

If this sort of inheritance is possible, though, it would mark a significant change in how we think about health. It might mean that the impacts of, say, diet or other environmental factors could be passed down for generations.

So how is epigenetic inheritance different from regular inheritance?

In the classical genetic model, you get genes from mom and dad, and they got them from their parents, and those genes stay almost identical from generation to generation — with the exception of a few random mutations here and there. Inheritance is mostly a solid and unchangeable thing.

THIS clashes with everything that's been understood about inheritance since Darwin

But epigenetic inheritance suggests that a person's experiences could lead to directed molecular changes on top of his or her genes in very specific places. And those molecular changes could, in turn, get passed on. It suggests that someone can inherit experiences.

Epigenetic inheritance is an extra layer suggesting that someone's experiences may affect how his or her children and grandchildren use their genes. That clashes with everything that has been understood about inheritance since Darwin and Mendel.

How does epigenetics work, exactly?

(National Institutes of Health via Wikimedia Commons)

The details of epigenetics' mechanisms are still up for debate. Scientists are currently looking into various non-DNA molecules that might be able to turn genes on and off (and possibly get passed down from one generation to the next).

One mechanism that gets a lot of study involves reversible molecular tags called methyl groups that attach to DNA and can potentially turn certain genes off. Researchers have shown that these methyl groups can be inherited, too.

However, there are several other types of molecules that might also be involved in epigenetics, and they aren't necessarily mutually exclusive with each other. Methyl groups and other small molecules also attach to histone proteins (which DNA is wound around), which may affect how particular genes are used. Scientists are also studying other molecules, including small RNAs.

What are the big, possible findings in epigenetics research?

In the past decade or so, scientists studying epigenetics have begun to put together a few broad findings that could drastically change how we think about health.

1) Grandparents might be able to pass on their experiences to grandkids: Some epidemiological studies that track health over several generations seem to suggest that the experiences of grandparents can somehow get passed down at least two generations, to grandkids. And this inheritance doesn't appear to be due to genetic mutations — but rather something else.

One key group of epidemiological studies focused on a century's worth of health records in an isolated community in Sweden — where, in some years, people often wouldn't have enough to eat (due to, say, a bad harvest). A study published in 2002 found that the men in this region who had plenty of access to food between the ages of 9 and 12 went on to have male grandchildren with higher rates of diabetes and heart disease. This multiple-generation effect is an intriguing correlation, suggesting that something is being inherited that's not DNA.

men WHO HAD BETTER FOOD access AS BOYS haD grandchildren with MORE diabetes

Other researchers have found that the grandchildren of women who were pregnant during the Dutch famine of 1944 to 1945 were more likely to be fat as newborns. A possible mechanism for this is that the famine interfered with the normal process of embryos stripping epigenetic marks off of their DNA to start off fresh.

However, these kinds of epidemiological studies have some inherent weaknesses. One is that it's impossible to fully account for all the different variables that might change if someone has gone through starvation. For example, people who live through a famine might end up raising their children differently, which could in turn affect how their kids raise their own sons and daughters. (In other words, this might be due to upbringing and social learning rather than epigenetic inheritance.)

2) Animals might pass experiences on for two generations — and maybe through epigenetic changes: Animal studies can sometimes allow researchers to better tease apart cause and effect, because scientists can control more of what's going on in a laboratory than they can with people living in the real world.

Some interesting recent animal studies include a paper published in December 2013 (by Sarah Kimmins and colleagues), showing that male lab mice fed a diet low in folate had different epigenetic markers on DNA in their sperm and had babies with more birth defects.

A CONTROVERSIAL PAPER appeared to show that fear memories can be inherited IN MICE

And this summer, a paper published in the high-profile journal Science showed that female mice that were starved during a key period in pregnancy had children with low birth weight and metabolic problems and had grandchildren with metabolic issues, too. What's more, the mothers' sons had different epigenetic markers on their sperm DNA, suggesting that's how the health problems are getting passed down.

Perhaps the most intriguing animal paper so far is a study published online in the winter of 2013 that appeared to show that fear memories can be inherited. Researchers from Emory University trained male mice to associate an odor with an electrical shock, so that they would get startled simply by smelling the odor by itself. Surprisingly, the scientists found that the smell also startled the next two generations of mice.

And this behavior was inherited even if the mice were conceived through in vitro fertilization — which seems to rule out any social learning between generations. However, this study has been controversial: some experts have questioned the part of the analysis that claimed to show epigenetic changes on the gene for the relevant nose scent receptor.

3) Childhood experiences might affect adult health — possibly through epigenetic changes: The idea that one's childhood experience can affect one's health as an adult doesn't seem all that surprising. But studies are beginning to show correlations between childhood experiences, health later in life, and epigenetic markers on DNA.

These markers could help researchers understand why certain health effects show up — and maybe even help people undo adverse effects.

One key study showed that baby rats fostered by mothers who provided less care have epigenetic changes on a gene related to stress. Child abuse in people has been correlated with similar epigenetic changes, too. Name a health condition — cancer, diabetes, schizophrenia — and there's a decent chance that someone's found some kind of correlation to an epigenetic marker.

But there are plenty of caveats here: the causal data isn't that strong. And it's unclear how big the effects might be.

Why could epigenetic inheritance be such a big deal?

 

If some parents' life experiences are being physically passed down to subsequent generations, this could drastically change the way we view a lot of health issues.

It means that choices that parents made, possibly decades ago, might affect not only their own health, but their children's health as well. (This includes choices made by both mothers and fathers.) It would also mean that certain environmental stresses, like poor nutrition associated with poverty, might be partially inheritable.

The flip side, however, is that understanding epigenetic inheritance could lead to ways to prevent or lessen the disadvantages that might be written onto children's genetic material.

What's the controversy over epigenetics?

The big controversy is whether these epigenetic markers are actually being passed down through multiple generations. This idea is known as transgenerational epigenetics. And the idea is still fairly young and not fully sketched out.

"It’s sort of 'Wild West' days," says Michael White, a geneticist at the Washington University School of Medicine. "A lot of the hype is due to technology, and it’s going to take a while to sort it all out."

The field is currently popular with big journals, the press, and the public's imagination because of the possibly huge health implications.

The big controversy is whether epigenetic markers GET passed down through multiple generations

Some researchers say that transgenerational epigenetics is absolutely real. They're just looking for the exact mechanism of how experiences are written into someone's eggs or sperm and then how those molecules avoid getting cleared away in the womb.

But others don't buy that transgenerational epigenetics has been adequately demonstrated.

"It’s not impossible that there are transgenerational effects, but I haven’t seen any really compelling example," says Tim Bestor, a genetics and development researcher who focuses on epigenetics at Columbia University Medical Center. "I mean I have no bias against it. It’s just the studies that claim transgenerational inheritance have been of such poor quality."

So am I doomed if something bad happened to my parent or grandparent?

Not necessarily. First of all, it's important to remember that epigenetics is still a fairly young field of research. No one really knows how much epigenetics influences future generations. It could be a lot, or it could be very little, or maybe it's not happening at all.

Also, remember that these epigenetic molecular tags are physically reversible. They're not necessarily a permanent form of inheritance, the way that DNA is. It's possible that you could inherit some problematic molecular tags, but then your own life experience would change them for the better.

It's also possible that behavioral changes or drugs could someday be used to undo unwanted epigenetic states. That is, there's the possibility that scientists could actually strip disadvantageous epigenetic markers off of people's DNA.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/inherit-experiences-inside-weird-world-142103088.html

[trichcycler]

Seed libraries struggle with state laws limiting exchanges

 

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — For thousands of years, people have exchanged seeds to grow terrific tomatoes or produce the perfect potato, but a new effort to loan and borrow seeds has created a conflict between well-meaning gardeners and state agriculture officials who feel obligated to enforce laws restricting the practice.

 

 

 

 

 

Seed exchanges have sprouted up in about 300 locations around the country, most often in libraries, where gardeners can exchange self-pollinating seeds rather than buy standard, hybrid seeds. In spots like Duluth, Minnesota, the conflict with agriculture departments has surprised gardeners and library officials, who established exchanges to meet a growing interest in locally grown food and preserving certain varieties, never thinking to examine the intricacies of state seed laws.

 

"It's about the philosophy, the legacy of shared seeds," Duluth Library Manager Carla Powers said. Its seed exchange is operated by library employees and volunteers out of a converted wardrobe. "It's about sharing with our friends and neighbors in the community."

 

Agriculture officials say they weren't looking for a fight but felt obligated as they became aware of the increasingly popular seed libraries to enforce laws, which are largely uniform across the country.

 

Intended to protect farmers, the laws ensure seeds are viable, will grow the intended plant and aren't mixed with unwanted seeds for weeds or plants. Even though most of the laws refer to "sales" of seeds, that term is defined to include exchanges — where no money changes hands.

 

"Everybody thinks we're the big, evil, bad government, but it's much more complicated than people are aware," said Geir Friisoe, director of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Plant Protection Division.

 

The issue first arose last summer in Pennsylvania, when a state inspector became aware of a seed exchange at a public library in Mechanicsburg that appeared to violate the law.

 

State Agriculture Department Deputy Secretary Jay Howes said his office "sent them a nice letter" that outlined the problem, noting seed distributed by the library needed to be tested and the library would have to be licensed. State officials and the library quickly resolved the situation by agreeing to hold one-day seed swaps, Howes said.

 

Despite the agreement, some were puzzled about why the state had demanded changes. The department felt it was wrongly portrayed as cracking down on well-intentioned gardeners, when officials had little choice.

 

"When state law was written, probably 10 years ago, there was no such thing as a seed library, so the law didn't anticipate this," Howes said.

 

Advocates of seed-sharing programs said they don't necessarily blame agriculture departments, but some express frustration that laws focus on the needs of modern hybrid seed producers while limiting age-old, person-to-person seed exchanges.

 

 

 

It's hard to justify restricting the small-scale exchanges, according to John Torgrimson, the executive director of the Seed Savers Exchange, which maintains a seed bank of more than 20,000 varieties. His Decorah, Iowa-based group meets the standards of all U.S. seed laws.

 

"There's almost no danger," he said. "This is not a risk to agriculture in any state. This is not a risk to our food supply."

 

Betsy Goodman established a seed library at an Omaha, Nebraska, library branch in 2012. This year, patrons checked out nearly 5,000 packets, and the program will expand to two more branches on Jan. 1.

 

"As a farmer, I understand why these laws are in place," said Goodman, who works at an organic farm. But, she added, "Regenerating your own seed is a human right."

 

Despite the existence of several seed libraries in Nebraska, they're probably not legal. David Svik, who heads Nebraska's seed control office, said if the organizers of such libraries persist, he'll likely seek guidance from a state attorney about how to proceed. The issue also might arise in the Nebraska Legislature, Svik said.

 

Friisoe said his office will propose changing Minnesota law to allow occasional exchanges and those operated by charitable groups.

 

Meanwhile, Oakland, California-based Sustainable Economies Law Center is providing information to seed libraries about state laws, including an online "Seed Law Tool Shed" that compiles relevant sections. Neil Thapar, a lawyer for the center, said his group planned to help state legislatures draft measures that would allow the libraries.

 

"We think it's a right people have," Thapar said. "It's part of our culture."

 

http://news.yahoo.com/seed-libraries-struggle-state-laws-limiting-exchanges-151655945.html

[purple pimpernel]

For grassmatch-

 

watch@-30:00

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=V1_1qeD7Pjk

[t-pain]

http://www.michigan.gov/mdard/0,4610,7-125-2390_41275---,00.html

michigan seed office

[trichcycler]

For grassmatch-

 

watch@-30:00

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=V1_1qeD7Pjk

killer!! thank you!

 

I was a little before my time

but shazam!!!! whoooop, there it is!

Edited January 8, 2015 by grassmatch

[trichcycler]

DON'T FEAR THE CULTURE" !!!!

[trichcycler]

I will gladly show anyone how to tissue culture without building a hood, or hassling with anything but a tent in a closet.

 

those hoods scare many people away. I suffered a 70 percent loss for years, and actually appreciated the stats!, until I ditched the hood and all of the moving air, now I see success as high as 75% living past the 6 month period, some for many years with no contaminations.

[coreyz]

I regret not taking a tissue culture class ,I'm behind the times.

[trichcycler]

all the class you need is found in a book called "Plants From Test Tubes". If I had that book 25 years ago I swear my plants would be talking by now!

[AbominableDro-Man]

all the class you need is found in a book called "Plants From Test Tubes". If I had that book 25 years ago I swear my plants would be talking by now!

The one by Holly Scoggins and Mark Bridgen? Can't hurt to pick up some new reading material! 

[trichcycler]

yep

[Seefdro]

Excellent vid above... Was playing with the idea of learning tissue culture a few years back... Spoke with a Michigan Sate green thumb graduate from their green thumb program. His endeavors were challenging in regards to tissue culture. When the conversation was done I felt overwhelmed and put it aside... As someday I will learn tissue culture?. That said, I like what was said in this thread and think it's pretty kewl the thoughts are being propagated in regards to tissue culture here. Feeling the invigioration in regars to learning more, always a good thing.