Plant cell and tissue culture is the in vitro aseptic culture of cells, tissues, organs or whole plant under controlled nutritional and environmental conditions often to produce the clones of plants. Mostly, the resulting clones are true-to-type of the selected genotype. The controlled conditions provide the culture an environment conducive for growth and multiplication. These conditions include the proper supply of nutrients, pH medium, adequate temperature and proper gaseous and liquid environment.
Plant cell and tissue culture technology is being widely used for large scale plant multiplication (micropropagation). Apart from their use as a tool of research, it becomes of major industrial importance in the area of crop improvement by somaclonal and gametoclonal variants, to produce plants of superior quality, isolation of useful variants in well-adapted high yielding genotypes with better disease resistance and stress tolerance capacities and production of secondary metabolites. A single explant can be multiplied into several thousand plants in relatively short time period and space under controlled conditions, irrespective of the season and weather on a year round basis. Endangered, threatened and rare species have successfully been grown and conserved by micropropagation because of high coefficient of multiplication and small demands on the number of initial plants and space. The main objective of the course is to practice the cell and tissue culture techniques, various developments, present and future trends and its application in various fields.
- Teacher: Sonali Abeysiriwardana
- Teacher: Arosha Buddhapriya