Unfortunately the bug has been present for years and will likely never be fixed.
You can use cheat commands to get around some of the tasks. Turn on debug cheats, shift-click and select things like growth stage or moisture. Set moisture to dry and you'll then be able to assign someone to garden it. Problem is, cheat commands will not cause fruit to grow, so NONE of the plants on the science lab lot will EVER grow fruit. But I get around that by growing the plants on my home lot and just carry them to work if I need them for a potion. At least the plants can still have samples taken.
Screwed up thing is, even though plants won't grow, they still die. So, eventually, if you are at the lab long enough, you will have no more plants and be unable to grow more.
There aren't any mods to fix it either. So, I think we're all screwed.
ThHow do we get attention on this issue? It’s been a problem for years and it’s not related to mods or anything.
Where is the laundry list... They have no problem announcing a new kit but have not mentioned anything about a patch fix.
I found a workaround for getting the harvestable needed for serums. Since the plants won't grow them, and I don't want to invest my own sim's money into growing them at home, I just go into build mode while at the lab and "buy" a bunch of seed packets, typically the season packets to increase the odds of getting what I need. Since it is a community lot, the build mode is automatically in no cost mode. Then I just have my SIM open all the packets and keep the harvestables in their inventory until I need them. Not as ideal as being able to grow them there in the first place, but it works and it's free.
