Plant tissue culture is one of the most rapidly growing areas of biotechnology because of its high potential to develop improved crops and ornamental plants. With the advances made in the tissue culture technology, it is now possible to regenerate species of any plant in the laboratory.
Application in Research Work:
Tissue culture techniques have helped in research work variously:
- It provides knowledge about mineral requirements of plants.
- Organogenesis has been studied by inducing formation of roots, shoot tips, etc. from callus on nutrient mediums.
- Tissue Culture Technique has helped in studying various biochemical and physiological processes in pure cultures without complications of other factors.
- Recessive traits can be studied in haploid plants raised by anther/ovi culture technique.
- Production of somatic hybrids that normally are incompatible.
- The effect of hormones on plant cells can be studied.
II. Improvement of Crops:
Hybrid vigor is important in crop improvement. Normally homozygous true-breeding cultivars are obtained by selfing for many generations which requires work for many generation. Anther culture technique has helped in raising haploid plants and then diplodization of these haploid plants by using colchicines result in production of homozygous diploids in limited period of time.
III. Shortening of Breeding Time:
Embryo culture technique can be used to break seed dormancy. This has enabled in shortening of long dormancy periods in certain horticultural plants, thus shortening the breeding time.
Also seed viability can be tested by germinating excised embryos.
IV. Production of Rare Hybrids:
In plant breeding all desirable crosses are not successful mostly due to death of embryo at-early stage or endosperm-embryo incompatibility. In such cases complete viable plants can be raised by embryo culture or protoplast culture technique.
V. Maintenance of Pure Desirable Lines of Plants:
It is quite difficult to maintain the crop varieties in pure form under natural field conditions. However, tissue culture technique has helped in maintaining. Genetically pure clones indefinitely. This help in averting loss of desirable characters.
VI. Rapid Multiplication of Plants:
A long period of time is required for multiplication of plants by natural methods.
Tissue culture technique has helped in raising a large number of plants in very short time and small space that can be planted accordingly.
VII. Improvement of Hybrids:
Development of cell fusion and hybridization techniques has solved the problem of incompatibility of plants and widened the space of production new varieties with a short time.
VIII. Encapsulated, Artificial seeds:
These are somatic embryos covered with a protecting gel. The gel acts as seed coat and artificial endosperm providing nutrient as in true seeds.
IX. Production of disease resistant plants:
Many plants, which propagate vegetatively are infected by virus, bacteria, fungi and nematodes. Their inoculum is carried over several generations.