What are the advantages of tissue culture methods over conventional method of plant breeding in crop improvement programmes?

The advantages of tissue culture methods over conventional method of plant breeding in crop improvement programmes are as follows:

1. Conventional breeding techniques failed to keep pace with the growing demands of the current time.

2. Tissue culture on the other hand can produce thousand of exact plant together in a very short time from a single cell/explant.

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

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

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

6. 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.

7. The plants that are produced by tissue culture are used to produce thousand and more exact copies of an economically important plant.

8. 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.