Question

What is explant in tissue culture?

Answer 1

Ornamental plants like orchid

Answer 2

Answer:

Tissue Culture:

The procedure in which a small tissue pieces or organs is removed from a donor plant and cultured aseptically on a nutrient medium is called Tissue Culture. This production is also known as micro propagation technique. The synthetic medium contains all the nutrients and hormones which are required for the growth.

A cell or tissue is transferred into suitable synthetic medium under sterile conditions. The tissue then develops into a fast growing cellular mass called callus. The callus is transferred to another medium for growth and differentiation that forms plantlets. The plantlets can be transplanted into soil or pots where they can be grown to maturity.

Tissue culture technique is being popularly used for production of ornamental plants like Orchids, Dahlia and Carnation. Other examples are Banana, Fig, Lemon, Potatoes, etc.

Advantages of tissue culture are:

1. A large number of clones can be produced from a single parent plant.
2. It enables us to select and culture the desirable characteristic traits.
3. It frees us from the restrictions of growing plants only in certain seasons.
4. It has short production time with long generation time.
5. Reproduction of plants is possible even in the absence of seeds or necessary external pollinators to produce seeds.