kscans

Chapter 162 - Tissue Culture (Part 2)

As such, the tissue culture experiments were proceeding without a hitch, but it was also a fact that it would still take time to grow the cultured callus into transplantable seedlings.

"But… if I leave them in the lab, they’ll probably wither… If I move them to a glass container and seal it… no, that won’t work. I can’t be sure."

He had a memory of something like a micro-cosmos, a sealed glass container with a plant and a fish, being sold, but it was doubtful whether he could preserve the callus in the same way. No, even before that, he could not decide whether to leave the lab’s thermostat running while he was away. If a fire were to break out, the entire village would burn down. He could not take such a risk.

"...I guess I have no choice but to shut down the constant temperature room. So leaving the callus behind is also impossible. In that case, I guess I have no choice but to put it in Storage."

Thanks to the thoughtful kindness of the god, Yuri’s Storage came with a "chilled setting" option, making it possible to store living things in a state of suspended animation. The experiment itself would be interrupted, but if he stored the callus there, he could keep it safe.

"It might be a little late to plant them… but it’s better than letting them wither."

And so it was decided that the cultured callus would be stored in Storage.

Incidentally, Yuri had succeeded in tissue culturing not only the aforementioned Sugar Beets and turnips, but also the fruits he had bought in Laurenzen. He had set aside the seeds just in case, but he could not predict whether they would germinate and grow successfully, so he decided to perform cloning by tissue culture as well. There was another motive for attempting cloning. Even if the fruit seeds were sown and germinated, there was no guarantee that they would bear fruit that was just as delicious. However, if he could tissue culture the flesh, he might be able to obtain the same clone that would surely bear fruit with the same taste. There were conditions such as temperature and fertilization, but the possibility of obtaining delicious fruit just like the commercially available ones would increase.

"...But I failed with the dried fruits, dried herbs, and pepper…"

Spices are expensive in this world as well. If he had succeeded in cultivating pepper, he would have made a fortune, but it was not to be.

"Well, this time I could only find black pepper, and it looked old, too."

Yuri only learned this after reading the description in Appraisal, but it seems that pepper seeds are extremely difficult to germinate, and propagation is generally done by cuttings. He could not say for sure that the pepper of this world was the same, but so far, crops similar to those on Earth had similar properties, so there was a possibility that the pepper of this world was also difficult to germinate. Moreover, it seemed that black pepper was made by drying the seeds before they ripened, and if the ripe seeds were dried and the outer skin was removed, it became white pepper. Incidentally, if it was dried as it was without peeling the outer skin, it became what was called red pepper. Therefore, if it were to germinate, it was thought that it would be white pepper or red pepper, not the unripe black pepper.

"And most importantly, it’s been thoroughly dried after harvest. There’s a high possibility that the seeds are dead, so they probably won’t germinate just by sowing them. I think I’d have to use wood magic and… probably dark magic too…"

Yuri muttered to himself. But that is enough about pepper. What happened to the Sugar Beets and turnips that Yuri brought back? Let us turn our eyes to that.