5.18B: Understand How Micropropagation can be Used to Produce Commercial Quantities of Genetically Identical Plants with Desirable Characteristics

MICROPROPAGATION: Method used to produce large numbers of identical plants (clones) from a selected stock plant

PROCESS OF MICROPROPAGATION:

MICROPROPAGATION

Diagram showing the Process of Micropropagation

PROCESS: In Micropropagation, specific plant tissue (typically undifferentiated shoot) is selected from stock plant and sterilised Tissue sample is then explanted and grown in petri dish containing sterile nutrient agar gel Explant is treated with growth hormones (auxins) to stimulate Shoot and Root development As a result, growing Shoot can be continuously divided and separated to form new samples Once Root and Shoot are developed, the cloned plant is then transferred to Soil, resulting in commercial quantities of cloned plants genetically identical to initial stock plant

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF MICROPROPAGATION:

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGE
Greater yield - large number of Plants can be produced	Population is genetically identical so is susceptible to diseases (no variation)
Faster growth	Vulnerable to change in conditions (can only exploit suitable environment)
Propagation of rare species	Decreases variation
Practicable at any time of the year
Genetic modification can be passed on to rest of population efficiently