My wife bought me 2 fig plants on eBAY from Florida Hills Nursery for my birthday.  They were advertised as LSU Purple.  The plants arrived today and they are as advertised and arrived in good condition.

My question for my learned colleagues is as follows:  The seller advertised "Each plant is lab grown from tissue cultures"  WHAT DOES THAT STATEMENT MEAN???

THX

Danny K
Marshall Tx

There is a discussion about getting Black Ischia TCed right now. A sterile laboratory takes the tiniest piece of tissue from ht growing point and multiples it. It is supposed to make virus free plants.

Happy Birthday!

Kinda thought that was it, cloning???  Is there genetic engineering to remove the virus?

Thx
Danny K
Marshall Tx

Well yes it is cloning, but so is growing cuttings, or dividing a plant. The virus is not in the tiny piece they use to clone from, but is in cuttings. No genetic engineering is involved, gladly.

If it's anything like orchids, they take a tiny piece of undifferentiated tissue, treat it with colchicine and divide it several times as it grows until the desired number is reached. At that point, they let it differentiate and so each piece grows into an individual plant.

Only thermo-treated meristems have a chance at being Virus free.   Even then they have to be tested to verify this.  Tissue culture for these nurseries is just a faster simpler way to multiply the plants with generas that don't produce cuttings fast enough on there own (like Banana, colocasia, orchids....)  If you call them and ask them I think you will find that these are not thermo-treated.   I would venture a guess that there is no gaurantee that they are virus free.  But don't worry, the virus is not a big deal.   I have plants that I know have it.  They grow out of it or live with it as long as you treat them right and don't grow them in stressed conditions.

I think, if you got it on Ebay, you should be happy you got the kind you ordered.  Most of us get something mis-labeled.  It is what it is!

Suzi

Awesome birthday gift, I have read that LSU Purple is a great variety for your area.

 What a nice wife!

LSU purple is one of the figs I purchased first.

Danny K....

I just received 7 small "Black Mission" treelets from Florida Hill Nursery.  You will be getting very small 6"-10", tiny trees, that were grown in a tube tray.  I think they are called "plugs"  The little trees are very nice, but years away from bearing age.

Good luck with your new trees.  Happy Birthday.

Frank

Is Florida Hills Nursery the same as Wellspring100 on Ebay? I'm pretty sure they are owned and run by the same folks, but don't offer the exact same deals. If I remember correctly the better deal was to order online from FHN as they had coupons not honored by the ebay co. (wellspring100). I bought plants from them and they were tiny in tiny pots but the price was fair and the plants were healthy. I'd buy from them again. The Black Mission fig they sent was good.

Anyway LSU Purple is a great fig here in Virginia. It's one of my favorites. Nice wife.

I purchased Black Mission, Green Ischia and Magnolia from Wellspring last spring/summer. Plants were 6 inches tall then and now over 3ft in 3 gallon pots with multiple branches. They left positive feedback for me and shipping costs were inline with my expectations. From a noob point of view, no complaints from me over here.

Not that I had a poor experience on eBay but now I would only order from forum members via ebay so you know exactly waht you are getting and ususally can see picture of the parent tree and its fruit as well as answer any questions.

Tissue culture is a method/process of propagating plants that are clonal or identical to the parent. In some ways it is a brutal chemical process, and therefore the plants are not actually always identical because of the damage/mutation that happens to the DNA. Some species suffer more variability than others, such as Bananas. Some chimeras, in Bananas will not come true when tissue cultures. It is often used to produce many plants from a small small amount of genetic material - sort of like turning one cutting into 100 cuttings, so that you can produce more plants in a shorter time frame.

With bananas, for example, it can be done on your kitchen table for fairly minimal cost and equipment, and without a lot of specialized knowledge, if you follow simple procedures and maintain cleanliness.

Isn't this a high-tech, state of the art, costly procedure? How does a dinky little nursery like Florida Hills afford something like this?

THX to all!!
As mentioned above, the plants are about 6"-8" and are really small in caliber, 1-2mm.  That is okay and it was not misrepresented, the shipping was reasonable, and the plants arrived healthy.  The bad thing is I don't know how long it will take to make sure it is a LSU Purple, but since I really don't know the difference, I'm not sure it matters right now, LOL.

THX
Danny K,
Marshall Tx

are they woody or still green?

Stef,
Still green, one of them has just a hint of wood at the bottom.

They are just distributors Frank. The list they have is the same as Agristarts so I assume they are the ones making the plants.