Large Scale Tissue Culture Production for Horticultural Crops

Abstract

Formerly, there was mentioned a great potential for the use of plantlets from tissue culture for horticultural crop production, but not until recently has this potential for rapid expansion become a reality. Although there are many reasons for this, they can be readily grouped into two main areas. First, there is a long list of sound advantages of tissue culture for the growers. The rapid propagation of new and highly demanded crops, year round shipments, uniformity, specific pathogen free, enhancement of juvenile vigor and suckering are just a few. Second, the cost of producing plants conventionally continues to go up while the cost to produce tissue cultured plants has not gone up nearly as much, and in some cases has come down. This is mainly a result of improved efficiency in many areas of the process.