Not an ad or anything but I got it from light.bio if you’re curious. Super cool product, I’ve been waiting for a company to successfully bring a bioluminescent plant to the market for a decade and it finally happened!
Man… Fuck the US patent system. “Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.”
‘Personal use’ covers propagation and breeding by an individual, for non-commercial purposes. Nobody’s saying -you- can’t try to propigate or breed them, but you could be libel if you try to make money off the endeavor.
In this case I would say the patent system is working as intended, in that it gives some protection to LightBio’s investment into creating the firefly. While I would LOVE to see an expanded variety available from other -commercial- growers (with MUCH larger operations and funding), I don’t want it to be at the expense of LightBio’s effort, or the commercial success they’ve earned for creating it in the first place.
You could give them away as gifts legally right?
Yeah, just don’t set up a competing business and you’re fine.
Don’t get me wrong, I still feel dirty for defending the US patent system. lol
I mean they invested into R&D to develop it, I think it’s fair for them to have exclusive rights to sell it to recoup that investment and make a profit. This is a novelty item, not like an essential staple food or medication.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it is what it is, however petunias are very easy to propagate and you can do whatever you want with your plant as long as you aren’t selling it.
I already have a second one growing from a cutting I took.
Ok, I’ll take back some of my hate. I thought they had put some sort of monsanto-like ‘if you try to reproduce it on your own they’ll die’ gene.
If it’s not ‘pay $40 if you want another plant’ then that’s more reasonable.Did you do anything special with the cutting? I want to keep growing a few more of these and maybe save some for next year.
I just dipped the base of it in root growth hormone powder before planting.
To be fair, they probably spent years of time, effort and money to design this product. Why should someone else be able to propagate it and profit from their blood sweat and tears?
Does it glow this well to the naked eye or did you have to do any photography tricks?
I used the night sight feature on my phone’s camera for this photo, however I would say the brightness level is pretty accurate to what you’d see with the the naked eye once adjusted to low light.
Perhaps a tad dimmer in real life, but it provides enough light to faintly illuminate really close objects such as my hand. It’s super cool
Super neat. At some point I need to intern at a plant breeding lab just to inject that into all of my houseplants that can tolerate it. Right now I’ve got a mix of pothos, hoyas, philodendrons, and jasmines trailing around my house and it’d be so much better if they were one long nightlight.
I really hope this company (and others) are successful, it would be so awesome to have a variety of plant species available in GMO bioluminescent forms lol.
Nice! I got mine recently too but haven’t checked it for luminescence since I’ve been busy - I still need to repot it and hang it in a better spot that gets better sunlight so I’m not expecting it to be bright just yet.
Mine had almost no glow when I first got it, and I mangled the roots during repotting so it lost all of its leaves. This is its first new growth and it’s nice and bright, I hope yours does well too!
Mine arrived all mangled, with most of the roots ripped off during shipping. It’s recovering now, looking forward to hopefully getting to see the bioluminescence in a few weeks
Treat it well and the new growth will be bright!
Heck yeah! I’m excited for mine to arrive!!
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I live in the Netherlands and GMO’s are banned here so I hope some get to Switzerland(not EU) where I could buy them and then import them like glofish.
I wish they would do shipping to Europe.
I think it might be against the law in Europe. I’m not 100% sure but I think it’s a lot harder to sell/ship a GMO plant there.
I think that’s mostly food regulations, but I’m not an expert of the field. Might apply more broadly as well.
I got mine yesterday! It had a very, very slight glow last night. I’m hoping once we re-pot it and fertilize it the glow will get brighter.
I was in the same boat with a very faint or no glow at first. With fertilization and some bright lighting you’ll start getting new growth that’ll glow!
Nice! Mine should be arriving soon and I can’t wait! Does Light Bio send out shipping notices, or did you all just have it arrive as a nice surprise?
They should send you a shipping notice. I purchased mine on March 17th and got a shipping notification email on April 1st.
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