Great idea. I love finding these kind of games although many get abandoned or fall short of what they could have achieved. I like teh direction you are heading. Just thought I'd chuck in my 2 cents worth an see what you think.
-Upgradeable research range is a great biomass sink, why not add that ability to the collector?
-Maybe some text undernearth the genetics to help people understand what they have unlocked? This may sound like a dumb example but:
Height
Increasing this value increases height of the plant.
This would really help for some of the later vaguely worded unlocks. (Seed Drag is back to front, increasing the number decreases the drag).
-Exitting the game and reloading doesn't seem to keep your genetic slider settings.
Keep up the amazing work, I'm a burst player so I am very infrequent with games but I'll be coming back to this one again.
Oh as an after thought.. sometimes my plants get a funny looking ?fire effect? on them, what is it?