I keep trying to imagine what it is that you feel like you have to wait anymore to file a patent and begin selling your medium formula! If later you find even better formulations, which I doubt, you just add a "New Formula" splash to the label and sell it for a few bucks more expensive still, LOL! Jokes apart, that's a great job right there! Thank you for the video.
First, you cannot easily file a patent to protect a medium formulation - if one component is slightly changed, then the new formulation (which is almost the same as the original) is not protected. Most importantly, these formulations are always being improved and it is not good to say that this is my recommendation or the best, if there are still big improvements to be made. As an example, I use commercial baby food in my medium but the citric acid (in the lemon juice) is detrimental so I am trying to determine what I need to add in place of that. I really do not like to use undefined media addenda....
So, if the patent is so useless in the case of formulations, that may be an extra reason for putting the product out as is, which is pretty good already, like the software industry does. PP Medium 1.0, then 1.x, then 2.0, and so forth! You will always be one step ahead of the competition! And you have the Plant Propagator original seal on your side! I'm just kidding, of course! I think you should just give the formula away for the good of mankind... Just kiddin' still ... Lol@@plantpropagator
Thanks for the informative video. I am curious to understand how the commercial orchid producers in Taiwan Thailand and Netherlands do this optimisation to produce thousands of their new hybrids throughout the world.
Thanks for your comment - there is really only one way to do medium optimization and that is to add different levels of different compounds and quantify the effects. There are modeling approaches that will allow you to determine a more optimum level, if not all levels are evaluated but I have not yet done this. It is an old "spray and pray" approach that everyone uses. The difference between me and them is that they have more people and space and can simply do more things. It is not a unique approach at all.....
Try to explore other factors like the light and temperature? I grow from seed and as experiment I put some flasks in natural light and other in two types of artificial lights I have, and the difference between types of orchids is quite large, some really like being cold at night (cold as in the pacific of Costa Rica, so 26C this week) and some light having less variation between hot-cold (38C-26C outside, 32C-29C inside), and the most impact has been the type of grow lights that I use. I can recommend the adafruit 10 channel light sensor for making sense of why a grow light is better than another. Have you considered making the recipes open source? Secrecy doesn't do well for any industry and more experimentation from your viewers will surely come up with a better recipe in no time. Also, I'm now using an electric heating blanket to eliminate moisture on my petri dishes. So while I'm inspecting one dish in the microscope, the next one is waiting under a heating blanket set on low, and let me say it works perfect as it doesn't head the plants too hot or too fast.
Unfortunately, I have fixed lighting and temperature - I can vary photoperiod but I tend to stay with 16:8 day:night. I have plant LED lights and did try different light qualities in my other lab but stayed with gro bulbs after that work. Light quality optimization is not something that I want to put an effort into. I made all of my media from my former lab available in the literature and many labs use those formulations. I know of 2 media companies who put my formulations together and they make money from selling them to their customers. I get nothing from them. I just do not want to release my formulation right now since it is not complete - it is like a half finished book or publishing a paper before the research is complete. I am in no rush to put out something that is unfinished. Also, there are many companies who hold trade secrets and do not patent and protect their formulas. Patents expire and have limited value for many items, and trade secrets are good forever. Coca Cola is the most famous example of this. Finally, thanks for the idea of the heating blanket. I normally do not have condensation issues, with the flasks in my culture room. The lab is a little cooler so the condensation formed when I brought the Petri dishes in to the cool lab. Condensation used to be a problem in many culture roots until LED lights became more commonly used.
