YouTuber Singlehandedly Crashes Rare Plant Market By Cloning Niche Plants

Plants belong to the people!

By Braden Bjella

Published 7 hours ago in Ftw

If you’re not in the world of rare plants, you might not even know that the “rare plant” market is a thing. To summarize, it is — and people will pay big bucks in order to have a one-of-a-kind sapling.


Well, they *would* pay big bucks in the past. Now, it seems that era is coming to an end thanks to a woman on YouTube.


The woman is a creator called “Plants in Jars.” Through her channel, she shows off something called “tissue culture,” which allows people to replicate plants — including rare, hard-to-find plants. While she isn’t the first to discuss how to do this (or the relative ease with which it can be done), her popularity has made people realize that the rare plant market might not be worth as much as people think. Consequently, the creator now says that the rise in her videos has led to an unintentional collapse in the rare plants market.


There are still concerns about this process, of course. This cloning technique creates an exact copy, which can, in the long term, harm genetic diversity. Still, it’s nice that you don’t need to pay $800 for a rare plant anymore — if you’re the type of person who can keep a plant alive longer than a few days.

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