Revolutionizing Agriculture through Plant Tissue Culture Techniques
Plant Tissue Culture
Application in Crop Improvement
One of the major applications of plant tissue culture is in the area of crop improvement. Through this technique, plants can be cloned in unlimited numbers which leads to mass multiplication of elite genotypes of crops. Conventionally, the improvement of crop plants is a long process involving several years of breeding. However, through tissue culture rapid mass multiplication of improved varieties is possible. Some examples include banana, potato, sugarcane etc. where tens of thousands of disease-free plants can be propagated from a single plant within a short period of time. This helps in the widespread dissemination of high-yielding crop varieties.
Tissue culture also helps in inducing genetic variability which accelerates the breeding process. Techniques like protoplast fusion and somatic hybridization allows the transfer of valuable traits from one plant to another. This way, characters like insect or disease resistance can be intro gressed from wild relatives to important crop cultivars. Embryo rescue is another technique used for wide hybridization which was not possible earlier due to incompatible crosses. With this technique, hybrid embryos can be rescued from failed crosses and established in culture to develop inter-varietal and inter-specific hybrids.
Production of Disease-Free Plants
One of the major strengths of Plant Tissue Culture is in producing pathogen-free planting material. Often crop plants get infected with viral, bacterial or fungal diseases which are transmitted through seeds or conventional vegetative propagation. In tissue culture, aseptic conditions prevent the entry of external pathogens. The plants regenerated are free from all pathogenic organisms. For example, banana cultivation suffered tremendously due to Fusarium wilt disease which was controlled using tissue culture. Similary, disease-free potatoes, cassava, sugarcane etc have been produced using this method.
Micro propagation is a commonly used commercial process where thousands of disease-free, true-to-type plantlets are regenerated from a small piece of plant explant. This ensures continuous supply of healthy planting material to farmers. For seed propagated crops as well, tissue culture derived synthetic seeds provide a convenient planting material with trueness to variety. Thus, plant tissue culture offers an effective means of plant disease management and distribution of disease-resistant cultivars.
Genetic Transformation
Genetic transformation refers to the direct introduction and expression of foreign genes in plants. This has wide applications in improving stress tolerance, yield and quality traits in crops. Plant tissue culture provides the basic technique for genetic transformation through Agrobacterium mediated or direct gene transfer methods.
In Agrobacterium mediated gene transfer, plant cells are co-cultivated with the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens which carries the gene of interest. The binary vector system of Agrobacterium helps in stable integration of the transgene into the plant genome. Direct gene transfer methods like micro projectile bombardment or electroporation are also used to transform desired genes into plant cells and regenerate transgenic plants.
Traits like herbicide tolerance, insect resistance and abiotic stress tolerance have been successfully incorporated into various crops using genetic transformation. For example, Bt cotton expressing Cry proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis is resistant to bollworms pests. Similarly, vitamin-A rich 'Golden Rice' has been developed to tackle vitamin-A deficiency in rice consuming populations. Thus, genetic transformation is another promising application of plant tissue culture with immense potential to address global challenges in agriculture.
Commercial Applications
Over the years, plant tissue culture has emerged as a viable commercial enterprise complementary to agriculture and horticulture. Commercial micro propagation involves mass scale production of plantation crops, flowers, fruits, vegetables, herbs and elite varieties of several agricultural and forest tree species.
Some of the major tissue culture industries globally produce thousands of bananas, potatoes, sugarcane and other crops annually. Floriculture sector extensively uses micro propagation for commercial cultivars of orchids, rose, chrysanthemum, gerbera etc. Biotech ventures offer tissue culture raised transgenic plants on a commercial basis. Even mature trees can be clonally propagated through this technique. Plant tissue culture also supports pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries by large scale production of valuable medicinal plants.
Overall, plant tissue culture technology has revolutionized agriculture, horticulture and related sectors. With further advancements, it promises to play an even bigger role to address key challenges of food and nutritional security through rapid propagation of improved crops and trees as well as transgenic development
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About Author:
Ravina Pandya, Content Writer, has a strong foothold in the market research industry. She specializes in writing well-researched articles from different industries, including food and beverages, information and technology, healthcare, chemical and materials, etc.