In-vitro Rhodiola rosea explant rooting

Baltic Freya is engaged with an agricultural research institute and a farmer to test the effects of different aerosol qualities on Rhodiola rosea in-vitro explant rooting.

A farmer engaged in natural raw materials supply to the food and supplements industry has acquired 60,000 plantlets of Rhodiola rosea plants with superior genetics. His goal is to engage in commercial cultivation – however, rooting and outdoor survival experiments led to no success.

Baltic Freya was approached in early 2022 with a request to help salvage the situation. Our team deployed a number of samples into its aeroponic systems and tested rooting efficiency with different irrigation intervals response to different irrigation intervals. Once we discovered the most successful interval, we expanded the research to droplet diameters.

The farmer’s end-goal is to purchase an aeroponic rooting system with built-in protocols for large scale Rhodiola rosea rooting. Our goal is to make sure that the same aeroponic protocol will deliver the same predictable results, no matter where the Baltic Freya system is deployed.

Partnership with KAPPA AgTech

Suspending tiny, fragile explants in a cloner was a challenge. We have tried several off-the-shelf solutions, but neoprene inserts are not suitable because of size and pressure on the explant.

To address the issue of inserts, we reached out to KAPPA AgTech who provided us with their proprietary silicone inserts. The inserts are inert and re-usable, which is perfect for our challenge. Worth to mention that using these silicone inserts as substrate enables USDA-Organic certification.

Together with KAPPA's CEO Schuyler Milton, we designed and 3D printed custom holders for the silicone inserts - the final prototype worked out very well, as the explants are suspended with minimal pressure on the biomass, and the exposure to aerosol is maximized.

The pilot test is ongoing.