I've been growing Wisconsin Fast Plants, a rapid life cycle model organism, for over 10 years! Our program has been developing educational resources and supporting teachers for over 40 years! I'm here to help, AMA!

Is there a danger they will become an invasive species? Ie if a curious student plants them in their garden?

Great question, this is one we occasionally receive from teachers as well. It is very unlikely that Fast Plants would ever become an invasive species. In over 40 years of Fast Plants being used in education, we have never received a report of an invasive/escaped population.

Fast Plants growth requirements are easy to provide in a classroom/research indoor growing environment, but Fast Plants do not grow well in outdoor conditions.

Fast Plants require 24 hour lighting for optimal growth, therefore natural outdoor/solar light does not provide sufficient lighting and plants will be weak. Fast Plants also require continuous moisture availability; they are susceptible to drought stress and cannot survive the variable moisture conditions outdoors.

The teacher I had for 4th and 5th grade used these for science! I loved watching the plants grow. I grew up to become a teacher myself. My question is, could you see the Fast Plants being used in a cross curriculum situation? As in science and social studies, or science and technology? And do you have resources to support such a thing? Thanks!

Fast Plants are fun to watch as they grow, something changes every day! So glad to hear you had a good experience with Fast Plants as a student and ended up becoming a teacher yourself!

Fast Plants can certainly be used in cross curriculum situations, in fact, one of our most recent lessons, developed for Middle and High School students, connects science, culture, and history as students learn about Brassica breeding and domestication. That NGSS-aligned lesson, Investigating Brassicas Around the World, includes a full lesson plan, discussion prompts, Fast Plants selection experiment, video, and supplemental readings/activities. All resource for that lesson are available/editable via Google Drive.

Are these used primarily for demonstrating life cycle, or are they used as test subjects for...I don't know- optimizing growing conditions or toxins or...?

All of the above! Teaching/demonstrating plant life cycles is certainly a primary use for Fast Plants in the classroom. (You can watch an annotated timelapse of the Fast Plants Life Cycle on our Youtube channel here).

For teachers seeking Life Cycle lessons for their classrooms, here are links to free, Open Source Elementary and Middle School NGSS-aligned Life Cycle Investigations.

Fast Plants are highly responsive to their growing environment, so they can also be used to demonstrate the effect of different growing conditions on plant growth. Genotype x Environment = Phenotype. Changing the growing environment by modifying available fertilizer, soil volume, light intensity, temperature, etc. will result in variation in plant biomass, flower number, seed yield, etc. (Timelapse video of different lighting conditions here).

Since Fast Plants grow so quickly, testing the effects of different growing conditions can be completed in only a few weeks in the classroom, providing students with the opportunity to observe firsthand, the impact of different growing environments on Fast Plants growth.

Wisconsin, eh? How much beer do the plants require?

Sound like an experiment to me! Maybe for an adult science fair? The control population could be irrigated with water and the experimental population could be irrigated with beer. Bonus points for trying multiple styles of beer in different populations!

Do you think it might be possible to create 'fast' versions of other staple crops like wheat, potentially helping make food systems more efficient?

While it is likely that fast versions of other crops could be artificially selected (or produced through GE techniques), there would likely be tradeoffs associated with the increase in developmental speed. Those tradeoffs may be changes to the plant's growth or biomass production; consider for example that the Fast Plant produces relatively low biomass compared to its close Brassica rapa relative, napa cabbage. Tradeoffs could also be increases to production cost; e.g. additional electricity consumption for extended photoperiod.

So, while it is likely possible to create faster versions of other crops, it may or may not be more efficient than the versions of crops we currently have.

How is it possible for Fast Plants to use 24-hours of sunlight per day - since don't "normal" plants have a daily light/dark cycle for different phases of their respiration?

Different plants have different lighting requirements for optimal growth and different photoperiod (length of day vs. length of night) requirements to complete their life cycle.

Some plants will be stressed if the dark period is completely eliminated. A good example of this are desert plants that have a CAM metabolism (vs. C3 metabolism in Fast Plants). CAM plants modify the opening of their stomata (pores) based on light/dark conditions. In 24hr lights, CAM plants' stomata will remain closed, preventing gas exchange and arresting development. In contrast, many other plants are perfectly tolerant of 24hr lighting and it may even increase their rate of growth.

Manipulating/controlling day length is a common practice in greenhouse floriculture. By simulating the day/night length of different seasons, plants can be induced to flower.

When Fast Plants were initially developed, over 2000 accessions of Brassica, obtained from the USDA National Plant Germplasm System, were grown under 24 hour lighting. Some plants were observed to flower faster than others, and these plants were selected for cross pollination.

In a sense, the growing environment provided a selective pressure. Plants that grew favorably under the 24hr growing environment (displaying ideal characteristics for a model population) were selected for continued development.

I've been familiar with Fast Plants for while now, so I'm wondering, are there any new varieties that may be coming available soon?

As we maintain our existing Fast Plants varieties, we are continually on the hunt for new phenotypes that can be used to demonstrate different biological and genetics concepts!

Our most recently developed seed variety is the Polycot. Polycot Fast Plants have three or more cotyledons (seed leaves) compared to Standard Fast Plants which have two cotyledons. The polycot trait is easily observable immediately after germination. Selection for the polycot trait will produce increased polycot frequency in subsequent generations.

Polycot Fast Plants are ideal for demonstrating artificial selection in the classroom, with several options for completing experiments over different timelines and the ability to demonstrate any of directional, disruptive, or stabilizing selection. The fastest polycot demonstration can be completed in just 72 hours, using seedlings germinated in Petri dishes.

Learn more about Polycots and access a full lesson plan (developed for High School) including implementation calendars here.

Edited: added links

What kind of restrictions do you have shipping seeds internationally? Are there countries where you cannot ship to, for legal reasons, did you need some approvals or is everything easy?

Are you the only ones growing & selling seeds or are there others (e.g. on other continents) doing the same?

Our Wisconsin Fast Plants Program, founded at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, doesn't actually sell anything; we are an outreach program that provides Open Source resources and lessons for teaching and learning. However, the University has a relationship with Carolina Biological Supply Company to assure that high quality Fast Plants seeds are available from a reputable vendor.

Different countries have different policies/restrictions on shipping of biological materials. Some countries require phytosanitary certification or other inspections prior to import of seeds.

Carolina Biological Supply has information about international ordering here.

Ah, I did not see that I switched to a company website when going through the links. Ordering from the US seems to be a bit too much work just for fun; I will check whether there are EU-based suppliers.

Fast Plants are occasionally listed on Amazon as well as Walmart. I cannot determine whether shipping restrictions exist when ordered from those sources, but it may be worth a try!

While your plants are primarily for teaching, has Wisconsin Fast Plants done any work for potential applications for making CEA more economically viable?

Or alternatively worked on bio regenerative life support systems?

At this time, our team has not specifically investigated any applications for CEA (Controlled Environment Agriculture) economic viability.

That said, many of the variables that are relevant for CEA viability could be modeled with Fast Plants. Fast Plants are very responsive to their environment and could be used for modeling the effects of environmental variables (for example, fertilizer strength, light intensity, etc.) on crop yield. Results modeled with Fast Plants could then be tested with the crops being cultivated in a CEA setting.

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Fast Plants love attention from their grower(s). While they can easily survive over the weekend in the classroom without attention (as long as you fill their water reservoir!) we always recommend that growers interact with their plants as often as they can. To know a plant, grow a plant!

Personally, I'm a big fan of singing/whistling for my plants. I can't say they've ever grown taller as a result... but it's still important to tell them they are good plants.

A couple of years ago I talked to a researcher at UMass Boston. He was looking for mutants in Arabidopsis that grew from seeds that had been irradiated with neutrons. He relied on self-fertilization to isolate mutants in the F1 generation. The big challenge was to get a feel for the organism, and to identify mutant phenotypes. It sounded like an excellent project. Have you been considering distributing mutagenized seeds of your fast plants, and do your plants self- fertilize?

That project does sound interesting, thank you for sharing. Arabidopsis is a self-compatible, self-fertilizing (also known as auto-pollinating or autogamous), member of the Brassicaceae family (the same Family as Fast Plants). A single Arabidopsis plant is capable of pollinating and fertilizing itself and producing seed.

Fast Plants do not self-fertilize and they are self-incompatible; cross-pollination of at least two plants is required to produce seed. Pollination of Fast Plants is an important part of observing the plant life cycle. Performing pollination in the classroom allows students to produce their own seeds and potentially observe the progeny they produced.

Carolina Biological Supply Company (the distributor of Fast Plants) does offer an Irradiated Seed Kit for studying the effects of mutagenesis with Fast Plants.

Are these GMO seeds?

Wisconsin Fast Plants are non-GMO. No genetic engineering or transgenic material has been used in development/maintenance of Fast Plants.

Fast Plants varieties were initially developed and are maintained to this day using conventional plant breeding techniques (i.e. plants with desirable qualities/traits are selected and cross-pollinated to produce populations/varieties with distinct traits).

Fast Plants Blog Post -- Are WI Fast Plants Genetically Engineered Plants?