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https://www.envirodna.com/

https://www.naturemetrics.com/species-detection

https://www.ednacollab.org/industry/

https://wilderlab.co/

These companies focus on environmental DNA - some are more on the level of local government monitoring, some are for private customers.

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Isn't this one of the primary techniques with which covid levels are being monitored?
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They are pretty much the same, yes! Those eDNA providers usually use a wider range of primers (12S, 16S, COI etc.) to capture a range of invertebrates, vertebrates, plants etc. For Covid, since it's only that one virus, you can target only the one gene so it's a bit easier.
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I don't really understand this. How much better are things for killing a specific plant than whatever you would use to kill a superset of the plants that might be there? Or treating with a few different plant species killers. And wouldn't those options cost less than the cost of this service?
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Well if you've got two trees and two bushes, and you know one of them is destroying your sewer line but you don't know which one, then you might not want to kill them all just to be sure.

Or in some cases you might not even need to kill the whole plant, just dig a targeted hole and hack off the problematic root. It'll probably take years for a different root to find the same crack in your sewer line and start wedging it open.

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OK. I was thinking you would be applying the chemicals in the pipe, but what you're saying makes sense.
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That’s a really clever idea, I would definitely pay for that in the right circumstances.

Now that I think about it - could you just pour some sort of biodegradable broad-spectrum herbicide down the drain to get the same effect for cheaper?

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This is precisely what I do each year with a product designed for this exact purpose. $8+shipping gets me enough for my annual pipe maintenance. It's even the special kind because I have clay pipes.

I don't wasn't to kill parents idea. It's neat, and Im sure there's use cases that my solution doesn't meet

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Isn't this a problematic idea? If you flush down herbicide without checking the results, you would risk breeding herbicide resistance in the weeds.
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I hope yours keeps working for you. I flushed a lot of blue crystals, but the plant was not deterred.
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> could you just pour some sort of biodegradable broad-spectrum herbicide down the drain to get the same effect for cheaper?

It will not degrade anywhere near fast enough to not cause serious issues in the biological treatment stage of the wastewater plant.

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How will you reach out to enough people so they are aware and can order the service? I'm thinking about the minimum viable business opportunity here.
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Hard to get a plumber to knock on my door for under $100. Maybe you mean $500? Or is it $100 for the lab bit only?
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Well if you have this problem, then having the plumber over is a sunk cost. You're paying them regularly to clear the sewer, and their snake will come back with root matter in the bit. Put that sample in a zip-lock bag and call me. I'll come over, take the sample, and identify the plants near your sewer line. If I get a match, I'll sell that info to you for $100.

Once I figure out how to make it work at all, I'll build a network of plant nerds and teach them to do the same in their cities, and pivot to providing lab services and training for them. Much of the time no sequencing will be required, just a microscope and knowledge of what's growing nearby. But if they have more than one plant of the same species, sequencing will be necessary.

Fingers crossed they're not clones, though I suppose I could do lab testing for that as well, and then I maybe you'd have to kill multiple just to be sure you got the one. In that case, hopefully I'd have at least narrowed it down for you. Probably would just deny the job if the odd of being helpful are low, like if you have 50 clones of the same tree all growing along your sewer line, then I can't help you, it's time to start saving for a liner or a replacement.

It's like uber, but for shit-covered roots.

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Fastest/cheapest sequencing based method would likely be to collect samples in DNA preserving agent (zymo DNA shield is decent for this), then have an automated platform for extracting DNA and preparing amplicon sequencing libraries (rbcL + matK probably?). Worth having a look at how Plasmidsaurus did this, they did have a similar service for microbiome analysis (https://plasmidsaurus.com/sample-prep/microbiome#16S-extract... - looks like they don't accept raw samples anymore though...). Oxford nanopore sequencing is a decent technology for this as it's fairly straightforward to get working and easy to scale :) As an added bonus, you could perhaps also carry out 16S sequencing in parallel from the sample to get an idea of the microbiome of the sewer.
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Do it!
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