Very doubtful you could profit off that plant. It's certainly a desirable plant, Brenden. But - and this is a Big But!! there are problems with the idea of propagating it for profit. Not to mention some big, expensive roadblocks in the process.
- First, you have to grow it for a few years to make sure it doesn't revert back to monochrome type. Daisy's plant hasn't so that is good. But it might be just a sport or an anomaly and not a genuine stable genetic mutation.
- Second, you need to see if you can propagate it successfully and grow variegated babies that are again stable - don't revert back to all green. That's going to take another couple of years, and be pretty iffy, jmho. You'd have to propagate it by divisions, cuttings or cloning not seeds because the seeds would certainly carry the dominant monochromatic genes so a percentage (probably a large percentage) of seedlings would be all green.
- Third, assuming you've met the first and second criteria, you'd have to grow these plants out to a size where you'd be able to sell and ship them successfully. I'd think that would take an ability to isolate the plants somehow, maybe in a greenhouse so they wouldn't mix with the plain ones.
- Fourth, patenting a plant, oh my! You'd have to prove that it is a unique plant that nobody else has, probably they do this by DNA profiling now, I'd guess. Very hard to defend a patent like that, IF you even could get it patented in the first place which is a long drawn out process and very expensive. If a large nursery got hold of one of your plants and began propagating and selling it, you'd be faced with hiring lawyers and getting more DNA proof that their plant IS the same as your patented plant - more huge expense.
