Tissue Culture as a Plant Production System for Foliage Plants

Abstract

Boston fern (Nephrolepsis exaltata bostoniensis) was the first foliage plant to be commercially propagated in vitro, about 15–20 years ago. Others were soon added to the list, and today the majority of boston ferns sold, as well as the popular aroids, Dieffenbachia, Syngonium, Spathiphyllum, and Philodendron (excluding P. selloum and P. oxycardium), are tissue culture derivatives. Considering that the first successful in vitro propagation of any aroid was only in 1974 (6), it is obvious that the deployment of tissue culture technology has been rapid indeed and has ameliorated the tremendous explosion of the foliage plant industry during the 1970’s from a 28 to 300 million dollar industry (14). The decade of the 70’s was also marked by the genesis of numerous commercial tissue culture laboratories with investment capitals ranging from 20,000 to 250,000 dollars (7). At one time, over 100 such operations were in existence, many of which failed shortly after their inception. While the number of such private laboratories has declined in recent years, most of those that survived have expanded their operations exponentially. Recent investments in excess of 1,000,000 dollars are not unusual.