Patent ID: 7350331

Claim:
A method of producing molecules from plants with top growth and root growth, comprising the steps of: cultivating said plants in soil-less and non-sterile conditions; feeding said plants with a nutrient solution and/or spraying said plants with a leaching liquid; recovering and treating said solution and/or said liquid to extract therefrom secondary metabolites liberated by roots and/or top growth of said plants, said metabolites being selected from the group consisting of tropane and indole type alkaloids, anti-cancer agents, taxanes or taxol derivatives, furocoumarins, terpenes, glycosides, phenyl propanoids, saponines and steroids; recovering said extracted metabolites; forcing permeabilization of said roots or top growth with a permeabilizing solution containing salts, surfactants, detergents, solvents, elicitors or fungal or bacterial origin, derivatives of jasmonic acid or other products which stimulate the natural defenses of plants; and repeating said steps of forcing permeablization, recovering and treating said solution and/or liquid to extract metabolites, and recovering said extracted metabolites until a desired amount of metabolites have been recovered from said plants, wherein, said forcing permeabilization step is carried out continuously by adding said permeabilizing solution to said nutrient solution supplied continuously or at regular intervals to said plants such that flows issuing from said roots and/or top growth, toward and into spent nutrient solution and/or charged leaching liquid contain said metabolites and are significantly increased without loss of viability of said plants, said forcing permeabilization step does not lead, even partially, to the destruction of said plants, and said plants are genetically modified to produce more metabolites or to increase root biomass following genetic transformation by Agrobacterium rhizogenes.