Cold-resistant potted banana, papaya and guava

[lebmung]

There is a company in Japan, D&T Farm who has engendered cold-resistant potted banana, papaya and guava. The DNA was manipulated after freeze/thaw cycles.
They will soon sell those plants, and the price tag is a little bit prohibitive $US 500.
They sell one banana already for $6.

Anyone from Japan planning to grow those?

Here is the company: https://www.dt-farm.com/pod

[pineislander]

They are not very specific about the cold tolerance of those plants, especially considering the high price. Good luck to anyone who buys one! Bananas can multiply so fast if their claims are true the price must come down very soon.

[lebmung]

Price would come down on black market. They must have a patent on those plants.
That is an issue let's say a person tries to make a new hybrid banana, and invests 10 years of research and a million dollars. Then another person buys the plant and multiplies more bananas in vitro, in few months they can make more 1000 plants. Unless it's a big company like Monsanto to have an army of lawyers, the company will not make money back. So most research it's limited to universities and other ngo, because the average person expects that plants worth nothing more than few dollars or they should be free.

[pineislander]

Also, lack of patent protection could mean that the purported cold resistance could not be documented adequately to satisfy patent protection.  The site doesn't explain if the cold resistance has resulted in improvements in any specific areas of germination, growth or fruiting. In other words, they might be hyping which is my suspicion.

[lebmung]

It could be an exaggeration. They way the made the plants is through protoplasm fusion and freeze/thaw cycles. Anyway I expect in the next 10 years to have some cold resistant plants in the market.