Small update on things I have learned:
I think age wise, we’ve more or less reached the limit without adding some kind of a substrate. Typically you would use an agar gel with lab grade hormones as your “nutrients”. Most people would not have access to these. I get them through a friend at a university when I need them (not illegal to get just tricky) but they can be very hazardous to work with so not something I would advocate for casual growing. I don’t know of a way to add standard nutrients to agar and sterilize it, as once you heat it the nutes can release potentially toxic gases. That would be the thing to find out, sterilizing nutrients to use in a substrate. Maybe we got an organic chemist around here.
I do know though that the sterilization will last upwards of 6+months. I let old cuts just sit in my fridge from when this post was originally written and I just threw them out a couple weeks ago. I didn’t think to take a pic for an update but here we are. The cuts had obviously deteriorated but the jars(x2) were completely free of any mold or rot or any other kind of growth.
Looking forward to getting back on OG now that the season is coming to a close. 