What are the applications of tissue culture?

Explanation

Applications of plant tissue culture : (i) Micropropagation : Micropropagation involves culturing of whole plant through tissue culture. Hundreds of plantlets can be developed from a single piece of callus. So this technique is quite economic. (ii) Somaclonal variation : Plants produced by tissue culture show similarity in their characters but few show variations. They are known as somaclonal variants. The regenerated variants were tested for their resistance to herbicide resistance, heavy metals, temperature and drought. (iii) Virus eradication : Plant viruses can be removed by apical meristem culture. The apical meristem culture is the only way to obtain a clone of virus free plant which can be multiplied vegetatively under control conditions that would protect them from the chance of reinfection.

(iv) Production of androgenic haploids : Anthers are produced from anther culture, ovule culture or pollen culture. Haploids are the plants which contain single set of chromosomes in their genome. They are generally used in plant breeding to improve agricultural productivity.