Reddit reviews Plants from Test Tubes: An Introduction to Micropropagation

i am not an authority, in fact i know very little, but a few things come to mind. this seems more like an agricultural/botany/marine biology degree you'd need with automation on the side than it is primarily automation related. all things considered, at present, it is not more profitable to do stuff like aquaponics/hydroponics/etc for growing food crops, where automation can play a substantial role, unless it's for high end organic markets. but who knows, in a few years maybe there will be more awareness of our impact on oceans and there might be a demand for organic, eco-friendly solutions to people's taste for seafood.

that too is only aquaponics. aquaponics is essentially a hydroponic system with fish/shellfish/etc growing in tandem. the fish waste is broken down by bacteria, and turned into plant food in-system, naturally, with a bit of a guiding hand to make it stable, and the plants in turn filter the water, absorbing/capturing and in a way creating an environment suitable for composting the waste into a substrate, making the water suitable for the fish. leafy things, salads for example, have better ROI, but again, stuff destined for high end, organic markets.

there's some interesting work being done with saltwater systems, seaweed + shellfish and freshwater systems with shrimp. since they grow faster than fish they let you harvest both quicker, but again it's problematic, since it's more efficient with less particulate matter, so the bigger the system the more the cost to filter out said particulate in different ways. i know of a friend who was pursuing an aquaponics venture on the side for essentially desert regions, the middle east especially. but he had to scrap the project. there is little demand for 'locally grown' things there right now, everything's brought in fairly easily owing to their relative independance in terms of energy and there is little awareness to bank on. but they do have money, and despite what people like to think, they're reinvesting heavily and not going anywhere. if at some point in the future there is such a demand, it might be very viable in a place where water is important to conserve.

the barriers to aquaponics are both economic (it is still too cheap to grow on soil, likely will be for a while) and demand/market based (the world over, there's very little demand for organic and ecofriendly outside of developed countries).

plant tissue culture seems to be a viable line of work. a lot of companies spend many years breeding and selecting and modifying plants, and you may have heard of companies like monsanto who have seeds that will only produce one generation of plants. even getting to that though, is obviously expensive, and steps need to be taken to insure a quick and consistent return on their investment. there might be certain varieties that don't bear viable seeds at all, but are still good candidates, in which case, cloning (as with cuttings) are the only way to propagate them.

tissue culture keeps you from wasting valuable plant tissue, and allows you to produce hundreds and even thousands of clones from one donor. it's an important step when you're testing particular strains for their properties, resistance to the elements, etc, because you need enough to gather significant data. the problem is, that this is labor and skill intensive, and essentially requires enough space for people to work in a lab. the lab itself has to be a cleanroom, which means the cost of air filtration and the like, which obviously mounts if the space is larger. there is also an extensive process of figuring out what mediums work best, or even at all. some plants don't take to already formulated mediums, in which case new ones have to be derived and tested fairly rapidly. prime area for automation and smaller footprints.

with tissue culture, the market is already established well, and there's a lot of funding and momentum put towards it, since its pretty much biotech 101 and a very versatile tool. regardless of where the plants end up, now or in the future, the barrier to improvement is technological, not financial, and the demand for cheap, competitive products is deafening, so there are plenty of careers to be found there and plenty of new ground to be broken and adapted to. there is likely a large market for cheaper products catering to smaller companies, and even governments that are keen on further developing their own programs cheaply, along with academic institutions all the way down to dedicated hobbyists. note, all of these people practice this already, I just mean there's room for optimization. tissue culture is pretty much the go to method for preserving and propagating orchids, for example (a niche market sure, but the same applies to a bunch of different plants that have similar appeal). dare i say, if in a few years marijuana becomes legalized, there will be plenty of small enterprising groups looking for cheap ways to store and propagate hundreds of different strains.

i mention both aquaponics and this, because while the latter might be a good candidate to be your bread and butter, the former is a good candidate to keep an eye on for pioneering entrepreneurial projects, and i figure it's likely to play a large part in our future. that said, tissue culture seems a bit harder to pick up, but still very doable. I don't think you could specialize in it and be competitive purely online unfortunately. I'm reading up on it myself off and on, and while it's not too expensive, i suppose it is a bit harder to get your foot in the door than making a small aquaponics setup. tissue culture is practiced by gardeners the world over all the time, as part of a hobby and even for small commercial setups. for aquaponics, you can head over to /r/aquaponics .

for tissue culture, the book i've been reading is supposed to be a bit dated, but is a great, easy to follow introduction, and it's called "Plants from Test Tubes" by Lydiane Kyte. It's been around for a while, so I'm sure you could ask around locally for a copy in a store, if you just want to take a look. the amazon link is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Plants-Test-Tubes-Introduction-Micropropagation/dp/0881923613

anyway, I hope this has been of some help.

http://www.phytotechlab.com/ has all of the raw materials and http://www.hometissueculture.org/ has the kits.

I know the second link is open to the public and the first might just ship to businesses but I don't know. To my knowledge there aren't any dangerous chemicals involved so there shouldn't be a problem.

I've only read this book. It's not too bad. It doesn't go too deep but it's also not a dummies book. They give information on how to go about doing it for a business along with some instruction.