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Plant tissue culture can be adapted to almost all of the plants
found living today, but with regard to our presentation of
technology, we confine our activities to plants that have wide
spread economic value and are normally propagated by vegetative
methods. This means one plant is divided into daughter plants,
rooting and growth of its divisions are encouraged and after some
time the daughter plants will resemble in all respects the original
mother plant. The increase in number of identical plants is
possibly faster than growing new plants from seeds and eliminates the variation that normally occurs when plants originate from
seeds.
We can look at the potato as a classic example. The normal
process for potato propagation is to grow a potato plant, at the end
of the season harvest the tubers that were produced during the
growing season. Carefully store these tubers during the winter
and in the spring plant the tubers in the ground. The
resulting crop, baring environmental influences, will be identical
to the potatoes produced in the previous year. This simple
process is a form of cloning. A potato producer can plant his
Russet Burbank seed potatoes and he can be assured next fall he will harvest Russet Burbank potatoes.
If we employ slightly more sophisticated methods, we can take
cuttings from a Russet Burbank potato plant such as the upper
portion of the stems, treat the stems with rooting powder and plant
the stems in soil. The plant will grow and produce Russet
Burbank potatoes.
An even more advanced form of propagation is the plant tissue
culture technology. A sterile piece of Russet Burbank potato
tissue is taken from a potato plant. This tissue is placed in a test
tube with a nutrient rich culture medium and is encouraged to grow.
Several cycles of cutting these plant tissues and replacing the
cuttings on fresh media are undertaken until the number of plants are
transferred and encouraged to grow. Each of these resultant
plants will be identical to the original Russet Burbank mother
plant.
Should you wish to employ a true seed method or a method of
producing seeds from the pollination of a potato flower with pollen
from another potato flower we will get seeds.
These seeds will grow when planted and produce real potato plants,
but as you and I resemble our parents, we certainly are not
identical clones of our parents. Potato seeds do not develop
into identical clones of their parents but combine genetic material
of both parents to produce a new individual with traits of both
parents.
Production of potato seeds by crossing one potato flower with
another is another way to create new potato varieties. But, for
the moment, it has limited use in commercial agriculture.
Using clones to produce fields of potatoes make the potato a
commercially valuable product.
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