Bioluminescent petunias now available for U.S. market

https://lgrmag.com/news/light-bio-to-introduce-bioluminescent-petunias-into-u-s-market/

by geox • 2 years ago

279 190 2 years ago

westurner2• 2 years ago

https://www.light.bio/

"An improved pathway for autonomous bioluminescence imaging in eukaryotes" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-023-02152-y :

Abstract: The discovery of the bioluminescence pathway in the fungus Neonothopanus nambi enabled engineering of eukaryotes with self-sustained luminescence. However, the brightness of luminescence in heterologous hosts was limited by performance of the native fungal enzymes. Here we report optimized versions of the pathway that enhance bioluminescence by one to two orders of magnitude in plant, fungal and mammalian hosts, and enable longitudinal video-rate imaging.

carlosjobim2• 2 years ago

This is incredible!

Can I propagate or breed the Firefly Petunias? Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.

Good luck to them with that. If these plants in real life are anything like in the videos, they will be grown and sold world wide in massive amounts and nobody will give a hoot about some patent.

Crespyl• 2 years ago

I'm sure if someone opened a commercial scale operation, at least in the US, they'd be able to sue, but you're right that as soon as it goes worldwide there's no practical way to prevent "piracy".

It'll be interesting to see if/how they try to lock it down genetically, I think it's possible to make the plants unable to produce seeds, but propagation is trickier. Monsanto might have some tips for them.

labster2• 2 years ago

What if someone inserted the gene in a human embryo, but didn’t pay the royalty? Would the pregnancy have to be aborted to protect the IP, or would it be enough to cease and desist future distribution of the gene via castration? I mean it sounds harsh but the parent did violate intellectual property law.

UncleOxidant• 2 years ago

It seems likely that the seeds you get from these plants won't produce plants that have the same characteristics as the parents.

alexose• 2 years ago

What about tissue culture?

bear141• 2 years ago

Cloning is very easy.

slimsag5• 2 years ago

Patents are a major PITA even in home gardening and small-scale nurseries. People have to respect the patents because a lot of plant sales are online these days, through Etsy and stuff, and the company will sue the ever living shit out of you if they find out you are selling them, especially on any meaningful scale.

Some of the best tomato seed varieties are often patented, e.g. F1 hybrid sungold tomatoes (though reproducing those is also annoying because they are a hybrid and people generally want seeds.) There are groups[0] which try to make varieties as heirlooms (i.e. collect-and-plant) seeds that are copyleft licensed[0].

For another interesting example of recent plant developments, Norfolk Plant Sciences developed purple tomatoes and recently began selling seeds of them. Unlike other purple tomatoes (of which there are only a few) these have purple meat inside, incorporating a gene from snapdragon flowers, which also keeps the tomatoes good longer. They are patented, $20 for just 10 seeds.

Another small company, Baker Creek’s “Purple Galaxy” tomatoes, has been suspected of re-selling Norfolk's purple tomato seeds and recently stopped selling them due to 'low stock' (suspected cease-and-desist) - as a minor controversy in the gardening community last week, though allegedly Baker's Creek is a white nationalist group so YMMV on whose side you want to take there.

Anyway, plants are fun!

[0] https://osseeds.org/

carlosjobim2• 2 years ago

Outside the US neither individuals or companies care about patents when it comes to these kind of things. Sure, maybe a nation's largest plant company will respect the patents, but the local plant store won't. And they are almost the whole market.

nkurz2• 2 years ago

Another small company, Baker Creek’s “Purple Galaxy” tomatoes, has been suspected of re-selling Norfolk's purple tomato seeds and recently stopped selling them due to 'low stock' (suspected cease-and-desist)

I'm familiar with this, but it sounds like you might know more details. Do you really mean "re-selling"? I'd presumed that the accusation was that they were planning to sell a cross-bred plant that involved genes from the patented variety, but my search attempts on the tomato forums weren't very successful. Is there a better "inside scoop" story out there to be found or is it all guesswork at this point?

westurner2• 2 years ago

Bioluminescence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioluminescence

Dig1t• 2 years ago

This is totally awesome. I would love to see these in person.

However, the one thing I really don’t like is this:

Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.

I think this is wrong, it should not be possible to patent life forms.

Mistletoe• 2 years ago

Luckily it is quite easy to clone plants!

https://www.flowerpatchfarmhouse.com/grow-petunias-from-cutt...

I'm sure they will go after stores that sell them but for the home grower, buy one and clone away.

charliebwrites• 2 years ago

On the other hand “Pirating bioluminescent flowers” sounds metal as hell

throwawaymaths4• 2 years ago

Technically (in the US) it's only possible to patent plants and I think legally yeasts are considered plants.

This is "to promote progress in the science and useful art of agronomy".

Not defending it, just stating what the law is.

whatshisface4• 2 years ago

I initially reacted to it negatively, but on thinking about it I realize that glowing plants are about as natural as polyethylene factories, so I get the logic behind the patentability, and can even see some benefits. Hopefully the patent will reduce the total number of these abominations grown.

nottorp• 2 years ago

Order one glowing petunia.

Plant a cutting in the neighbor's yard.

Neighbor goes to jail.

Profit!

Aurornis2• 2 years ago

I think this is wrong, it should not be possible to patent life forms.

Consider that if they couldn’t protect their work, they never would have invested the money into making these and offering them for sale to begin with.

I understand why some might find it unpleasant, but the fact that these exist at all is a testament to why such protections are available.

KerrAvon• 2 years ago

It’s not, though. There is a perfectly viable market of seeds and such for non-biolumenescent plants. You can, in fact, plant watermelon seeds and use the seeds in the resulting watermelon to plant more watermelon plants. Crazy.

autoexec3• 2 years ago

Consider that if they couldn’t protect their work, they never would have invested the money into making these and offering them for sale to begin with.

That's a massive assumption. Plenty of other plants are sold every single day that aren't patented. There's zero reason to assume that they couldn't make a very nice profit on these plants without a patent. Just like every single florist in the country does.

samus• 2 years ago

For this plant maybe, as they are pretty much a frivolity. Actual cash crops are another story.

Edit: it also seems that nontrivial engineering work was required to improve bioluminescence. It was not as simple as straightforwardly splicing in a few genes from a mushroom.

shellfishgene4• 2 years ago

From the nature article linked above: "When asked whether Light Bio is worried about plant lovers sharing cuttings of the petunia with friends, Sarkisyan says that although the firm owns patents for the technology, it doesn’t plan to crack down aggressively on the behaviour. “The most positive way of dealing with it is to come up with new, better products,” he says."

stubish• 2 years ago

This is how rose breeders stay in business. They get the rights to profit off their work, time limited rights over the life form they created. Where it gets messy is people copyrighting stuff they didn't develop or breed, just what they happened to discover and analyze first.

zokier• 2 years ago

Have you heard about Monsanto? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Legal_affairs

Apparently plants have been patented already for nearly a century, I didn't know that: https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2023/august/expanded-in...

But yes, its controversial, and for good reason. But so is most of IP law to some degree.

sampo2• 2 years ago

it should not be possible to patent life forms

If you count plant patents as patents, then almost all commercially used asexually propagated plant cultivars are patented.

https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/apply/plant-patent

bloopernova• 2 years ago

These plants remind me of the Cheshires from the book "The Windup Girl". Despite being scientifically impossible, the Cheshires illustrate unforeseen consequences very well. They are genetically engineered cats that can blend exceptionally well into their surroundings, like an octopus. They were made as party favours for an young girl's birthday party, but escaped and out-bred/out-hunted domestic cats to become dominant across the world.

There's a great critique of the lack of scientific rigour in Paolo Bacigalupi's novel, well worth a read if you like poor science being excoriated:

https://www.nyrsf.com/2015/10/eric-schaller-the-problem-with...

fbdab103• 2 years ago

Did himself no favors if the leading argument was that "20 years is too fast to replace a species." Like, fine? Call it a hundred and move onto a more damning critique. Only skimmed the rest, but several of them also seem to be making a lot of some off-hand flavor text.

Is it perfect? No, but I enjoyed the novel quite a bit.

boxed2• 2 years ago

As I remember it in the book, the genes were crispr-driven. Meaning ALL offspring got the new genes. So a modified cat having any offspring with a non-modified cat got these genes. So it's not really out-competing that determines the spread speed, it's outcompeting AND any and all interbreeding.

ildjarn• 2 years ago

I don’t look for scientific rigour in sci fi myself.

Angostura2• 2 years ago

And yet it can be fun, if you find it.

TeMPOraL3• 2 years ago

I remember that book; I think someone on HN suggested it when I asked for "biopunk" recommendations. It's definitely less bio than "Change Agent" by Daniel Suarez (which incidentally, IIRC, had more of genetically engineered animals for kids too) - but what I remember most about "The Windup Girl" is spring power. The book made me interested in mechanical energy storage and mechanical energy-based systems in general.

bitcurious• 2 years ago

You might enjoy reading about the spring drive watch movements Seiko makes.

dvh• 2 years ago

Meanwhile in real world we go completely opposite direction - degenerate munchkin cats

nothercastle2• 2 years ago

The best kind of cat is mentally disabled. Just sits purrs and chases random things

IntrepidWorm2• 2 years ago

im not sure I want a lithe hunter stalking through my house, marking every surface and attacking everything that breathes. I much prefer my dopey dander machines that sleep on my chest, flop around on the ground chasing the pocket lint they dug out of my trashcan, and superhero-leaping off their tree onto the couch to wake the other one with a screech.

If I owned a farm and needed a ratter, I'd likely feel different.

jseip• 2 years ago

Plant nerd here. Pre-ordered one of these and was not impressed. Checkout flow loses a step and shipping is almost as much as the cost of a pre-order.

slimsag5• 2 years ago

I'm confused, you got one already and didn't like it? or you just didn't like ordering it?

pests2• 2 years ago

They dont ship until spring so he is only complaining about the checkout flow.

UberFly• 2 years ago

The photo of the petunias in the article remind me of photos people take of their various tritium devices. It's always a long exposure to make it much more impressive than it actually is.

Smoosh• 2 years ago

It's the same with ocean bioluminescence. Your eyes adapt to the dark and see it better than it looks in a normal photograph, but most photographs are "enhanced" as you say with long exposure times and/or increased colour saturation.

dylan6044• 2 years ago

They have a video of it with people moving. I only saw it scrolling by without watching the video closely though. It does have the feel of some black light being used was my first thought.

TaylorAlexander2• 2 years ago

Well it’s clear in this video that there is some mild foreground light. But also the shot with the laptop is interesting because laptop screens usually don’t go super dim, relatively speaking, and you’re still seeing a clear exposure of the plant glow and the laptop screen. They’re quite a bit dimmer than the laptop screen but if they were extremely dim the laptop screen would be noticeably overexposed.

That said I can’t get a clear read on it due to the foreground light.

https://youtu.be/5SfkWdkoKxM?si=X92failgjPMzIeFY

saiya-jin• 2 years ago

Well they themselves mention up to 100x enhancement in original bio luminescence. When you start with something absolutely invisible to naked eye in pitch black even after some time, 100x ain't that much.

TeMPOraL3• 2 years ago

A nit, but:

something absolutely invisible to naked eye in pitch black even after some time

Is it invisible, though? If it were, how would we even find out it's bioluminescent? And then, IIRC visual receptors in our eyes are sensitive to single-photon events. It takes a bit more for us to consciously perceive light, but not that much more[0].

Also, 100x enhancement is 20dB increase, which isn't little.

[0] https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Quantum/see_a_photon....

pvaldes4• 2 years ago

The main problem is how to stop genetic contamination from pollen. Petunias are from tomato family. As far as I know, there is not cross pollination between both species, but maybe with the next species tried it could be. Or jump to native Solanaceae. Nobody wants this in their salad.

If there is something that terrifies me more than the capacity of Solanaceae to make sophisticated, evil poisons is to weaponize them even more with the superpower of fungus genes. The new pollen allergies could rank between "nothing to see here" and "next terrible problem".

malfist• 2 years ago

That is not how plant breeding works. You cannot cross a tomato and a petunia.

Loughla• 2 years ago

That isn't how genetics and plant breeding works? As an example; Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and orangutans are all in the same family.

More likely would be that these cross-pollinate with other petunias in someone's garden. Which is almost entirely not a problem, unless there is something about these genes that cause the plants to just be massively invasive and spreading.

But they're annuals with seeds that do not travel well, so mitigation of that issue should be relatively simple, even if it does exist.

Reubachi2• 2 years ago

This is a bit misleading. I have several photos of my >2 years old tritium/phosphate activated accessories taken in twilight hours, or just after that, in which the luminescence is very clearly separate from any background light.(and directly analagous to the brightness level in real life. )

Perhaps you've seen in real life some that are much older/decayed? I have a bunch that I need to replace in sights/flashights due to this reason, they're just much dimmer than originally advertised.

(anyways, these flowers aren't phosphorous tubes excited by radioactive decay/emission so there's no way they will be as full spectrum'd/constant as the tritium vials I just described.)

epiccoleman2• 2 years ago

I'm basically sold, and would have already ordered, but am I understanding correctly that what's for sale on their site is... one flower for $29? I could easily see myself dropping some money to have a glow-in-the-dark-garden, but it seems like at that price, getting any kind of "coverage" would be cost prohibitive.

Yes, yes, they can be propagated, but that's going to take a few plants if I'm to have enough to have more than a few odd glowing plants here and there.

Either way, this is super cool.

jimmytucson• 2 years ago

$29 plus $24 shipping, so $53 for one flower.

slimsag5• 2 years ago

Not quite, you can get 3 for $107 because it applies some automatic discount and shipping is not a linear cost.

dylan6044• 2 years ago

I had free petunia plants last year in the pots the previous years petunias grew. No, these were not the same plants as they are annuals that got pulled in the fall. Never thought about them seeding themselves like that. Maybe that $53 plant can do the same thing so you get a second year out of it essentially halving the cost???

We love us some volunteers

slimsag5• 2 years ago

It's not 'one flower' - it's one petunia plant. They grow 6-12 inches tall, and 1-4ft wide, with multiple flowers. It's like a small sprawly bush. From the FAQ:

The Firefly Petunia is shipped as a small plant rooted in a 4” pot. As flowers tend to suffer in shipment, the petunia will arrive with developing buds. It may contain a few newly opened flowers. With good growing conditions, it will quickly attain about 8 to 10 inches in size with abundant white flowers.

epiccoleman2• 2 years ago

Ah, ok, that's what I was wondering about. I was picturing something much smaller. That seems a lot more reasonable - still expensive for a single plant, but we are talking about something pretty unique.

PheonixPharts• 2 years ago

Just wait until you learn about tulips! I never understood tulip mania until my wife started planting them.

Tulips are annuals, so they only are expected to grow one season. You often order the bulbs in summer and they're delivered in fall, and then planted in early winter before the ground gets too cold. They're often less than a dollar per bulb, but if you've ever seen a nice arrangement, hundreds of tulips is not all that much.

The first year my wife told me she was spending ~$300 on tulips I thought she was crazy. That spring when I saw what they looked like I okayed doubling the order for the next year. It's really a delight to see spring announced by your yard exploding in beautiful flowers.

jerrysievert2• 2 years ago

I have some good news for you! While tulips do not reliably come back every year, sometimes skipping a year, they are actually perennials.

dekhn2• 2 years ago

tulips aren't annuals where I live in California (Bay Area). They come up in the same place year after year and even spread a little.

smokel• 2 years ago

Wait until you learn that some collectors of Galanthus (Snowdrops) have paid £1850 (~$2300) for one bulb of a new variety.

To most, they are simply the same green and white plants, but to some, they are quite the obsession.

[1] https://www.gardensillustrated.com/news/snowdrop-bulb-sells-...

tuumi2• 2 years ago

I'm going to buy one of these and take cuttings and root them. I have a indoor growing area so I could just keep taking cuttings and making a ton of plants. I'm sure this violates their TOS though.

jdhzzz2• 2 years ago

From the site:

Can I propagate or breed the Firefly Petunias? Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.

Propagation IS permitted as long as it's for personal use so your scenario is fine. Selling a propagated plant to your neighbor (or anyone else) violates the law.

c22• 2 years ago

There's a discount at 3 plants and free shipping at 10.

hi_hi• 2 years ago

This is cool and all, but "Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied With Whether Or Not They Could, They Didn’t Stop To Think If They Should"

I'm assuming these things are seedless, so they won't start popping up and spreading naturally?

bongodongobob• 2 years ago

So what if they did? We cross breed flowers all the time.

animal_spirits3• 2 years ago

This isn’t cross breeding two flowers, it is plugging genes from a mushroom into a flower. I can understand using GMOs to grow more food to prevent starvation and malnutrition, but this is messing with another living organism for pure aesthetic purposes. It feels different.

yagibear• 2 years ago

Nature has a more detailed article https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00383-3?s=08 describing why they chose petunias, and propagation via cuttings.

mholt2• 2 years ago

Kinda awkward, as I was curious to learn more about this plant I searched their website (light.bio) and it wouldn't load for me after multiple attempts. Just a blank page.

So I opened the dev tools and found the HTTP response of 504. Oh! Their site is down, it's not just me.

Then I looked at the response headers.

    Server: Caddy

*skull emoji*

(Of course, after my initial heart-sink, I realized that this means their backend is down, and Caddy is serving up the response just fine. Phew.)

Karrot_Kream2• 2 years ago

I see you're the author of Caddy, cool! Sometimes in Big Tech, this is a way to realize that some backend service is having issues because a proxy in front of the service is still returning a response. It's a rare failure case at most companies though.

jhardy54• 2 years ago

Isn’t that what the previous comment said? I don’t think HTTP 504 is specific to Big Tech.

tyre• 2 years ago

Explaining 504s to the author of Caddy is a move, to be sure.

havaloc• 2 years ago

Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was Oh no, not again. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now.

andsoitis• 2 years ago

Petunias are annuals, so you will have to fork over $29 per year per plant. There's probably no incentive for them to create a bioluminescent perennial.

frozenport• 2 years ago

lol. There exist bioluminescent aquarium fish that live for several years. Clearly the market will provide the plant the customer wants.

po• 2 years ago

AFAIK, there are no bioluminescent fish available on the market... There are GloFish (https://www.glofish.com) but they only glow when displayed under a UV light.

whatshisface4• 2 years ago

I know there are laws about importing foreign plants which might set seed and grow locally, becoming invasive. A modified plant that had any chance of establishing itself would probably face similar obstacles. I believe roundup-ready corn was sterile and, of course, an annual.

justrealist• 2 years ago

It's only annual if you plant it outside.

whyenot• 2 years ago

Petunias are perennials. They are not annuals. They are often grown as annuals because they are native to the subtropics and frost sensitive. You can grow them for several years as either a houseplant or outdoors if you can provide the climate conditions that the plants need.

vinnymac2• 2 years ago

You can actually dig up plants before the first frost and winter them in the house. I do this for a variety of them.

Just make sure to trim away anything that’ll track in bugs / disease, and keep them in a temperate climate.

web007• 2 years ago

The successful version of https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-pla...

This looks pretty cool, let's see how it goes!

thorum• 2 years ago

So how many of these would you need to match the brightness of a lightbulb?

userbinator• 2 years ago

How many {descriptor for a category of people} does it take to plant enough petunias to replace a lightbulb?

dools• 2 years ago

You know I woke up this morning thinking "why the hell hasn't anyone developed a bioluminescant petunia?!" then I saw this on HN!

bobim• 2 years ago

Can’t stop fearing that messing with the living like that is going to badly backfire at some point. The sad aspect is that it’s solely for frivolous reasons and profit. But damn, these petunias are cool.

Maxion• 2 years ago

Do note that humans have messed around with plants for a long time and that has caused loads of issues from loss of biodiversity, invasive species and what not. I don't think direct genetic manipulation of plants will have any worse effects than what we already see.

dkjaudyeqooe• 2 years ago

Genes are mutated randomly by nature, so the code is there to be changed and the menu of options is the same for nature and humans. Indirect methods have been used for centuries, so this is more a matter of degree.

Of course there are dangers in everything, but fiddling with the code of life probably seems more scary than it actually is.

hoseja• 2 years ago

Not messing with it will lead to decay. Just strive to be antifragile and stop reading so much doomer scifi.

_ph_• 2 years ago

Yes, messing with things should be done carefully. But one shouldn't forget how much bad things are happening every day:

- first of all, the continuous threat to Eco-systems from invasive species constantly spread around the globe by carelessness.

- one especially bad example is the breeding of pets which are basically sick by design. A lot of dog races are a prototypical example, but also cats and especially many fish breeds.

So yes, genetically modified plants are a bit frivolous, but one should push more to fight against the things listed above, happening so routinely.

croes• 2 years ago

But one shouldn't forget how much bad things are happening every day.

That's like saying, stab him because is already shot.

The straw that broke the camel's back.

solarpunk• 2 years ago

Would this fuck with bees/pollinators?

autoexec3• 2 years ago

Bees are active in the afternoons when it's bright out and these flowers shouldn't look much different from any other. I'd be more worried about them sexually confusing fireflies at dusk.

lukas0993• 2 years ago

Slightly worried about moths which are extremely important. However these probably have nowhere near the effect of the insane amount of artificial light we pump into the night sky

untoxicness• 2 years ago

Reminds me of the "lumiroses" from Margaret Atwood's dystopian MaddAddam trilogy. Although the roses are not integral to the books, the general theme of the series is taking bioengineering one step too far.

wizardforhire• 2 years ago

Pre-order here for $29

https://light.bio/

FPGAhacker• 2 years ago

This looks like some kind of joke from the Simpsons.

lukas0993• 2 years ago

Might make nice pathway edging for lighting the way at nighttime.

throwawayqqq11• 2 years ago

Insects might like it too.

schnitzelstoat• 2 years ago

It's a shame the backwards anti-GM laws we have in the EU mean we won't be able to have these here.

herbst• 2 years ago

Or glad that potentially harmful plants for our environment are not easily imported and sold.

As long nobody gives a fuck which flowers they buy this year to further kill the local ecosystem I am all for limitations.

Source: I live rather remote in the Alps and nature here is nothing like it was 100 years ago. Which is not necessarily bad, except most 'pests' seem to be popular garden plants.

patates2• 2 years ago

I don't care too much for what's native and what's not (perhaps partly because being an immigrant myself hehe) but the real disturbing plants are the ones who out-compete multiple species and add rather large points of failure by ridding diversity.

While imagining glowing forests is cool, in the fight against sweeping diseases, diversity is king.

boxed2• 2 years ago

That's actually changing now. But probably only for agriculture and medicine for now. Which is honestly reasonable.

teen• 2 years ago

No shipping to Hawaii :(

theultdev• 2 years ago

Firefly Petunia × 9 $261.00
Free Shipping available for orders from $263.01

You bastards. Fine, one more.

theyeenzbeanz• 2 years ago

Is this plant cat safe? Can’t seem to find that info

standardly3• 2 years ago

Wondering the same thing.

"Why is my cat glowing?" sounds inevitable for my household

Modified30192• 2 years ago

Regular petunias are supposedly safe, and a preliminary search seems to indicate that D-Luceferin is non-toxic enough that it can be injected into lab mice with no ill effects.

bregma2• 2 years ago

We can use this gene when we finally clone T. rex from the blood of a mosquito trapped in amber. It will no longer be the dark and ominous lurking horror of book and film that frightens children and adults alike. No, it will be the brightly glowing lurking horror that just kinda brings a smile to your face and can be the source of merch like children's night lights, safety-oriented Hallowe'en costumes, and all-night dance party fashions.

If we bred it into domestic dogs it would make nighttime walkies safer and midnight trips to the bathroom less stumblesome.

tyleo• 2 years ago

I’d put money down for a T. Cup Rex. Especially if it got along with my cats.

bregma2• 2 years ago

Those tiny arms would be sooo cute.

username135• 2 years ago

Black cats have entered the chat

hwbunny2• 2 years ago

Poor dog... the glowin dog collars are perfectly fine.

Quixotica1• 2 years ago

Shut up and take my money

vinnymac2• 2 years ago

I wonder how this could affect fireflies. Would the glow distract them in any way?

nemo44x• 2 years ago

Last time I did petunias I planted about 50 of them in the front and back beds. That would cost well over $1600 for the plants alone so I think I’ll wait until this has been scaled.

yladiz• 2 years ago

One step closer to Chroma Green from the game Stray.

nothercastle2• 2 years ago

Anyone grow any yet I want to know what they actually look like. At 50$ a seed packet im a little cautious

mbil• 2 years ago

Is it $50 for the seed packet or the actual plant?

ct0• 2 years ago

29 for the product, 24 for shipping the product

cachecrab• 2 years ago

It's for the actual plant. This is from the FAQ (taken from another comment):

The Firefly Petunia is shipped as a small plant rooted in a 4” pot. As flowers tend to suffer in shipment, the petunia will arrive with developing buds. It may contain a few newly opened flowers. With good growing conditions, it will quickly attain about 8 to 10 inches in size with abundant white flowers.

dr_orpheus• 2 years ago

Reminds of when the "Fire Flowers" in Better off Ted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5rAOitj5_8

"Whoah! What was that? Uhh...fire squirrel"

jijijijij6• 2 years ago

Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted.

Lol, what a disgrace. Bees, are you listening? The man said no!

I really want to pirate this plant now. Feels like an obligation to the general aesthetics of life and the wider how of things.

pvaldes4• 2 years ago

This is a standard message on flower novelties. In the 99% of the times, it must be taken as "commercial propagation and breeding" is not permitted unless you pay us royalties and we have a commercial deal, but each company is different.

I wonder what would be the color of this flowers, probably pure white, so by day would be indistinguishable from the other.

jijijijij6• 2 years ago

"commercial propagation and breeding" is not permitted

I think, legally, all propagation is forbidden, still. You'd become vulnerable, still.

Again, what a disgrace to claim existential control over life itself. They should be fucking ashamed. And we as people should not legitimize these wicked dreams.

baxuz• 2 years ago

How the hell are they going to enforce this

hwbunny2• 2 years ago

Delisting the results in google...

adultSwim2• 2 years ago

Shutting down attempts to sell the clones. No one goes after a home gardener for taking a cutting.

adultSwim2• 2 years ago

Go for it. Petunias are easy to propagate through cuttings. They get orders, you get a bunch of weird plants, win-win.

standardly3• 2 years ago

I remember an early startup, from like 15 years ago, wanting to bring bioluminescent street lamps to market. I wonder what has happened in this space since then.

sholladay• 2 years ago

One of the first projects I ever backed on Kickstarter was for a glowing plant, back in 2013. It was funded but never delivered to anyone.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/antonyevans/glowing-pla...

Bioluminescent petunias now available for U.S. market

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