Disease-Free Plants Via Tissue Culture Propagation

Abstract

The potentials of tissue culturing for plant propagation and plant breeding have been described by numerous authors and reviewed by Murashige (30) and Nickell (31).. Unfortunately, the popularity and excitement of this field have caused more words than action and the apparent cookbook approach to tissue culture propagation has given the horticulturist the impression it is rather simple in execution and success. To a degree the execution is simple, but a successful propagation system is not. Tissue culturing is not doing all the things we know it is capable of doing, i.e. mass propagation, storage of germ-plasm, fusion of protoplasts, production of disease-free plants, etc., because the practical details have not yet been worked out.