ABSTRACT

Some of the simpler techniques that are more approachable and have been found to be applied directly in plant propagation and genetic improvement of plants are micropropagation, meristem culture, somatic embryogenesis, somaclonal variation, embryo culture, in vitro selection, anther culture, and protoplast culture. Plant tissue culture technology is being widely used for large-scale plant multiplication. Apart from their use as a tool of research, plant tissue culture techniques have gained major industrial importance in the area of plant propagation, disease elimination, plant improvement, and production of secondary metabolites. The tissue culture laboratory should have aseptic conditions. A pathogenfree environment helps in maintaining good health of the callus, cell, or protoplast culture, resulting in recovery of healthy plants from such culture. Successful introduction of agronomic traits in plants was achieved using root explants for the genetic transformation. Tissue culture techniques enable to produce homozygous plants in relatively short time period through the protoplast, anther, and microspore cultures instead of conventional breeding.