Commercial Use of Micropropagation
Advantages of micropropagation
- Clones are genetically identical individuals
- The cloning of plants has many important commercial uses
- It allows a variety of a plant with desirable characteristics to be produced:
- Cheaply
- With a greater yield (a large number of plants can be produced per square metre)
- Quickly (the plantlets are ready to grow into mature plants)
- At any time of the year
- Identical to each other (so they retain the desired characteristic)
- Disease-free or resistant plants can be bred
- It can also ensure diseases prevalent in other areas of the world are not imported and spread by ensuring native varieties of plants are produced in large enough quantities to supply demand in one country without importing plants from abroad
- Tissue culture can also be an important process in preserving rare plant species
Disadvantages of micropropagation
- There are a number of drawbacks to using micropropagation:
- Trained personnel and a sterile laboratory are required
- All the plants produced are genetically identical and so will all be vulnerable to the same diseases and pests (the lack of genetic variation makes them less able to adapt to environmental change)
