Plants raised through tissue cultures are clones of the ‘parent’ plant. Discuss the utility of these plants.

• Tissue culture is the method through which we can produce thousands of plants of same type by a single cell.

• In this, an explants or any part of the plant is selected and is grown in test tube.

• The growth takes place under sterile conditions in special nutrient medium which contains carbon source, inorganic salts, amino acids, vitamins and other growth regulators.

• A whole plant can be generated from a single plant cell or an explant. This property is known as totipotency.

• Through totipotency a large number of plant can be produced which are genetically identical to the original plant from which they have been produced. Hence, they are called clones.

Utility: The plants that are produced by tissue culture are used to produce thousand and more exact copies of an economically important plant. The tissue culture also helps in the recovery of the healthy plant from a diseased plant. Because even if the plant is affected with the virus, the meristems are free from it. Hence, the healthy meristems are removed from the plant and grown in vitro conditions to obtain virus free or healthy plants.