ISHS Acta Horticulturae 78: Symposium on Tissue Culture for Horticultural Purposes
PLANT CELL AND ORGAN CULTURES AS HORTICULTURAL PRACTICES |
| Author: | T. Murashige |
| Abstract:
Cell cultures are now achievable with virtually all plants and their parts, and are accepted as significant research tools. More importantly, some in vitro methods are standard practices in the horticultural industry. An increasing number of commercial plant producers are applying tissue culture principles and methods to propagate clonally a variety of plants. Similarly, several in vitro methods of attaining pathogen-free stocks are available, and there remains simply their exploitation to recover yield and quality losses that are attributable to diseases. A combination of in vitro techniques with cryogenics might serve elegantly in germ plasm preservation and transport. Embryo cultures have been standard in plant breeding programs for 50 years. Other procedures, including in vitro fertilization through ovule and ovary cultures, haploid plants from anther and microspore cultures, mutagenesis via cell cultures, and somatic hybridization and gene-transfers through protoplasts, might in time be included among the plant breeders' aids. The potential of harvesting cultured plant cells and organs for their contents of medicinal and related substances has also been demonstrated; the technology must be developed for economic applications. | |
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