You Can Get Bioluminescent Plants So You Can Create Your Own ‘Pandora’ In Your Yard

Avatar fans, this post is definitely for you! I love the Avatar movies, but my middle daughter is a superfan!

She also loves plants and I just found the most perfect plants for her so she can make her own Pandora come to life!

Scientists have been working on creating bioluminescent plants since 1986, and they’ve made it happen!

They’ve successfully created a glow-in-the-dark petunia that has a continuous green glow.

The U.S.D.A approved the ‘Firefly Petunia’ last September (2023), and over 50,000 people placed preorders for the plant. Those preorders are finally shipping out, so I expect to see loads of photos on Instagram soon.

The company is called Light Bio and they have BIG plans for the future that will go beyond the petunias.

They plan to expand into roses, bouquets, houseplants, different colors, stripes, and more! They have such high hopes that they said…

We think that everything you see in Avatar, we could make.

Keith Wood, Light Bio CEO

Bio-engineering kind of creeps me out, and I know that I sound like a hypocrite… but how could I not be a little intrigued?

So how did they make glow-in-the-dark plants? in 2018 a synthetic biologist named Karen Sarkisyan identified genes from a mushroom called the Neonothopanus nambi, which is bioluminescent naturally.

If you look at the biochemical details of how mushrooms make light, there is a great deal of similarity between that and how the basic metabolism in plants work. That’s when I knew this very long-standing desire to make glowing plants would become possible.

Keith Wood, Light Bio CEO

They started with a tobacco plant and succeeded, but moved on to the petunia, which shares a similar molecular biology.

The greenhouse where these beautiful glowing petunias are grown is located in Michigan, where they continue to work on making a brighter glow. They are also working on adding other varieties so you can have your own Pandora.

What do you think? You can order your glow-in-the-dark petunias from Light Bio!