Seedlings and plantlets from tissue culture travel from the laboratory to a greenhouse or customer in sterile vessels. A plantlet is living tissue that keeps developing in its medium; because temperature directly affects the rate of growth, the target range is set by the laboratory for the species. If that information is not handed over in writing, the carrier follows its own habits.
| Factor | What goes in the dispatch record |
|---|---|
| Temperature | The range the laboratory wrote, sensor position |
| Light | Total time spent in the closed box |
| Shaking | Vessel orientation, padding, stack height |
Shaking is the most overlooked factor: a gel medium can move inside the vessel under hard braking. Place vessels upright and apart, pad the gaps, keep the stack low and never let a eutectic plate touch a vessel; secure them upright only where the protocol supports it.
If a record falls outside the conditions, or there is a delay or vessel damage, do not bring the sample into the experiment without the protocol owner's decision. Match the delivery time to when the recipient can put the vessels straight into a lit, temperature-controlled space, because a sample waiting in its box can suffer more than it did on the trip.
If returnable vessels are used, build the return into the outbound trip: the vehicle taking the new batch brings back the empties from the previous one, otherwise vessels pile up at the recipient and production runs short.
