Tissue culture for the hobby grower

[Toker1]

Hello all. I wanted to open a discussion about storing genetics/phenos in the form of tissue culture.
I am a small time medical/hobby grower that only provides for self and family. I was wondering if this was a new system I could possibly implement for my genetic/pheno storage for the strains I just can’t grow enough of! I need to know if this would be efficient from a management perspective. Financial and practicality are my main concerns, time spent and risk of losing genetics are another.
Here is my issue, I like to have a bunch of genetics “on call” to use at my disposal, but I have limited available space. Typically I would keep these in seed form. This has worked for me in the past, but now I am developing my skills further and have a particular interest in keeping specific phenos for traits I desire. This makes seed storage less appealing and tissue culture storage seem more appealing to me.
My questions are can I store genetics long term using tissue culture? What are the pros and cons?
I am limited on space to keep mothers, but can keep 4 different strains going at one time. I would like to create a small tissue culture lab (using the word lab very loosely here), so I can store many more strains for use at a later date. Would this system work for my needs? What are the pros and cons?
I don’t really have an interest in making thousands of replicas. Even thought that would be awesome! Lol I am more interested in the method of tissue culture to save specific genetics/ phenos long term for use at a later date.
Please indicate if you currently use tissue culture in your grows. Thanks guys!! Looking forward to how this discussion goes.
Cheers!!

 

[gbauto]

Welcome, Toker
What you're discussing is one of the true challenges of hobby grows-keeping a particular strain/phenotype available to keep growing. I suspect that it would be possible to use a similar cloning method like used on orchids but in the end, it's probably easier to just keep a few mothers around.

 

[Canuck147]

That's a question for Ed Rosenthal - I'm sure he has scientific friends in the know.

I'll stick with keeping my seed supply in the refrigerator - lasts for years.

 

[Toker1]

Thanks guys. So I have been keeping mothers. Been quite successful so far with only a hand full of problems. Lol
I currently have 2 mimosa seeds I popped, and I grew out 2 amazing looking phenos. 1 tall with thinner leaves (probably related to the clementine genetics) and 1 short with fat leaves (probably the purple punch genetics). I want to mess with both, and if I want to keep them...eventually I have to make space in my mother room. If 2 of my 4 mothers are mimosa... I’m limited to 3 strains total available to use. And I still have more seeds to pop. :-/
i guess this is a good problem to have, which is why I am exploring other options.

 

[Toker1]

Yes, same here. The seeds in the refrigerator has worked for me in the past...but this doesn’t help when I am looking to store pheno types.

 

[Toker1]

Yeah...I do keep mothers already. How do you combat genetic drift after long tine of cloning her? Or changes in the mother plant over time due to environmental stress? I’m looking for a method that is a bit more stable for the long term.