I am no expert by any means on synthetic seeds but to my understanding the method to produce synthetic seed is to mechanically or chemically reduce the plant material in sterile culture down to a very small size and then coat the cell mass with a semi impermeable coating. By doing this you can get a great deal of structures (artificial seeds) in a small space and I believe at this point can only be stored for a short period of time under specific conditions much like recalcitrant seeds. I also believe these synthetic seeds have to be "germinated" under lab conditions by chemically- mechanically breaking down the coating to release the tissue inside and tissue culturing the material like any other cultured cells.Because these synthetic seeds originated from living plant tissues, I believe they would fall under all the rules and regulations of importing regular tissue cultures, which tend to be treated like live plants. I know by experience that tissue cultures of seed grown Lilium coming into the USA from Austria, even though they have never been grown in non-sterile conditions are gamma radiated during shipment long enough to turn everything into a soupy mix of sterile goo, All the best, Michael, central California. On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 11:12 AM Lee Poulsen via pbs < pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > So this idea/question popped up in my mind about synthetic seeds. > > For those rare species that we haven’t be able to produce seeds with, or > the bulbs don’t produce offsets, or we only have one accession, (or we > would like to get it to people in other countries), could this be a method > to propagate clones from our plants and get them into the hands of other > people? How hard is it to grow a synthetic seed into a plant once you > receive the “seed”. Is a lot of [expensive?] equipment required? Does > anyone know if it would be easier or more difficult or the same to get it > into countries as actual seeds? (Like Australia or New Zealand or the EU > for example?) > One reason I wonder about this is that for example for the genus Musa > (bananas), our USDA won’t allow import of actual corms—at all (as least > from Southeast Asia). However, there is no problem whatsoever with > importing tissue cultured Musa. If it isn’t too difficult, and especially > if it isn’t as much trouble as tissue culturing itself, it might be a good > way to share the harder-to-get species that some of us have that we haven’t > been able to share with anyone else. > > --Lee Poulsen > San Gabriel Valley, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a > Latitude 34°N, Altitude 340 ft/100 m > > > On Jan 8, 2026, at 04:40, Tim Eck via pbs < > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> wrote: > > > > Thanks for the info. > > I did a quick search on synthetic seeds and it is much as you would > > expect - encapsulating somatic embryos in alginates, etc. so they can > > be treated more like seeds. > > I also learned of a useful concoction used in plant propagation which > > essentially kills every kingdom except plantae and is autoclavable and > > reportedly is the best way to do plant tissue culture and preserve > > seeds. I imagine a little of that would do wonders for the alginate > > coating on synthetic seeds. > > > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > https://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> > PBS Forum latest: > https://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbsforum/index.php/… > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net https://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net> PBS Forum https://…