Advantages and disadvantages of cutting plant propagation
Answers
Advantages of vegetative propagation
The main advantage of vegetative propagation methods is that the new plants contain the genetic material of only one parent, so they are essentially clones of the parent plant. This means that, once you have a plant with desirable traits, you can reproduce the same traits indefinitely, as long as the growing conditions remain similar. This is especially important for commercial growers who want to reproduce the highest-quality plants and ensure consistency of a variety of plant or crop for sale. This can also help to maintain consistent quality and taste in products made from plants or crops. For example, in Zealong’s tea plantation, they propagate new tea plants using cuttings to ensure consistency in the taste and quality of their tea.
With vegetative propagation, plants also bypass the immature seedling phase and therefore reach the mature phase sooner. This can save a lot of time and money for commercial plant production. For example, it takes 3–4 years for a tea plant to grow big enough (from a cutting) to be ready for harvesting and processing into tea. Growing from seed would take even longer.
Disadvantages of Artificial Vegetative Propagation are:
The plants do not have genetic variation and lose their vigor gradually. There are more prone to diseases specific to the species which can result in the destruction of the entire crop. As many plants are produced, it may result in overcrowding and lack of nutrients. It can induce overcrowding.
As there is no genetic variation, the offspring are less adaptable to the environment. If the parent has a disease all the offspring inherit the disease. Plants that are air layered and cut plants generally do not have a strong root system These plants may collapse in certain age. In artificial vegetative propagation only few new individual plants are produced from a parent plant. The parent plant will be burdened if they are air layered too much.
Advantages of cutting plant propagation are:
a. This asexual way of propagation is cheaper and easier and also faster in the actual propagation.
b. Parent plants with desirable traits can be exactly cloned.
Disadvantages of cutting plant propagation:
a. The genetic constitution of the off-springs lacks diversity and hence, more susceptible to infections and external attacks.
b. The flaws in the genetic constitution is passed on and magnified over repeated cutting propagation.