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At the beginning of Blade Runner 2049, when K visits Sapper Morton's farm, there is a shot that shows what looks like a greenhouse with Cyrillic characters on it.

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From what I understand, that word reads tsielina, which means "new soil" (and sounds a lot like dr. Stelline's name, but that may be a coincidence). Is there a particular significance to this word?

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Well, "new soil" is almost not correct.

I'll refer to a good Wikipedia article about it instead of trying to explain it myself.

The Virgin Lands Campaign was Nikita Khrushchev’s 1953 plan to dramatically boost the Soviet Union’s agricultural production in order to alleviate the food shortages plaguing the Soviet populace.

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  • This answer provides a translation, but doesn't answer the question asked. Is there any significance to it.
    – T.J.L.
    Jan 31, 2018 at 14:38
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    The world in which Blade Runner is set has seen an apocalyptic event decimate a huge part of Earth's human and animal population, and leaving the globe largely contaminated, to the point that any kind of non-artificial pet is a good of extreme luxury. I find it quiet easy to draw a parallel between this context of scarcity and the food shortages mentioned in the article.
    – wip
    Jan 31, 2018 at 15:30
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The word tselina (no soft consonants as normal) means "celery" in Bulgarian. You don't need to look for metaphorical connections in other languages: given that we see this written on a greenhouse, it's pretty safe to assume that the only significance it has is to denote what's growing in there.

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  • Thanks! This sounds anticlimatic compared to the other answer, but nevertheless it makes a lot of sense given the context. If I understand correctly the Russian and Bulgarian word are written in the exact same way, so it seems impossible to tell which is the correct interpretation without external clues.
    – Federico Poloni
    Jul 18, 2020 at 10:44
  • Except that it's clear from the movie and the internet shorts that he grows some sort of insect based protein. Given the apparent ecological collapse, i find the 'metaphorical connection' in Russian much more compelling an answer.
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Jul 18, 2020 at 14:28

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