Crop Improvement Through Plant Tissue Culture

Abstract

Plant tissue culture has emerged as a powerful and cost-effective tool for the crop improvement. Tissue culture is alternatively called cell, tissue and organ culture through in vitro condition. It can be employed for large scale propagation of disease free clones and gene pool conservation. Agricultural industry has applied immensely in vitro propagation approach for large scale plant multiplication of elite superior varieties. As a result, hundreds of plant tissue culture laboratories have come up worldwide, especially in the developing countries due to cheap labour costs. Tissue culture has been exploited to create genetic variability from which crop plants can be improved and to increase the number of desirable germplasms available to the plant breeder. The selection of somaclonal variations appearing in the regenerated plants may be genetically stable and useful in crop improvement. Available methods for the transfer of genes could significantly simplify the breeding procedures and overcome some of the agronomic and environmental problems, which otherwise would not be achievable through conventional propagation methods. Transgenic crops resistant to pests, insects, diseases and other abiotic stresses is a great achievement in the field of plant biotechnology . This article is cover in vitro propagation and role of biotechnology in crop improvement.