@Peter @Drew @regina.smart
I was vacationing in Hawaii recently, and since MARSFarm recently sold some MV1s to the school system there, looked into local agriculture.
With the decline of sugar cane and pineapple production, most of the agriculture seems to be small scale (10-20 acres) market farming of mixed crops (fruits and vegetables). Breadfruit and coffee trees (we were in Kona!) don’t fit easily into an MV1, so I was not sure of teaching opportunities.
Leaving the airport, I noticed a rack of plant shoots for sale, all labeled as not needing USDA agriculture permits to take with you on the flight. This later got me thinking of floral agriculture, and I started looking into that line of farming.
Turns out there is big floral market, and a lot of research and education around tissue culture.
This has me looking into using the MV1 for tissue culture research. I am currently evaluating some techniques and tools, and at the moment believe it could be done with minimal or no changes to the MV1 This would open up new learning opportunities to everyone now using the MV1. Not only is there a real need to evaluate the effects of light, temperature and media exchange; but this would teach skills that directly transfer to work in plant labs and tissue culture production.