PREFACE

Invited and keynote speakers and selected authors of offered oral papers and posters had the opportunity to submit their manuscripts for publication in this volume of the series Acta Horticulturae.

Submitted manuscripts were reviewed by at least two members of the Editorial Board and amended according to the referee suggestions prior to acceptance. The Editorial Board could not accept all manuscripts submitted for publication.

The ISHS acknowledges the cooperation received from the Editors and Editorial Board on reviewing the manuscripts which was a significant contribution to the overall quality of the publication.

The ISHS Board of Directors


FOREWORD

Plant tissue culture has become one of the cornerstones of present-day agriculture. It is being applied to breeding, not only in genetic engineering or haploid induction but also to produce small samples of new cultivars in conventional breeding programmes. Futhermore, tissue culture is used to free plants from pathogens, in particular from viruses. Tissue culture is also applied for vegetative propagation of crops. Micropropagatioon supplies growers in a short period of time with healthy, vigorous and uniform starting material. In scientific research, experimentation is being carried out more and more in tissue culture because the conditions can be better controlled, substances can be easily added and isolated organs can be studied instead of complete plants.

This volume of Acta Horticulturae contains the oral contributions and selected poster presentation of the tissue-culture session of the Brussell's congress in 1998. Together, the presentations give an excellent picture of the present state of plant tissue culture in horticulture.

Geert-Jan de Klerk
Subtheme convenor