Tissue Culture In Forestry

Description

Tissue culture has been proposed as a method for the large-scale clonal propagation of forest species. Plant tissue culture relies on the fact that many plant cells have the ability to regenerate a whole plant (totipotency). Single cells, plant cells without cell walls (protoplasts), pieces of leaves, or (less commonly) roots can often be used to generate a new plant in culture media given the required nutrients and plant hormones. The main advantage of this technique is the production of exact copies of the parent plant. Plant tissue culture technique offers an excellent opportunity for mass propagation of plants in laboratory test tubes, which are transferred to the field. Besides crop plants, the technique is also applied to regenerate saplings for plantation and regeneration of dwindling forests. Some rare and nearly extinct plant species can be rescued and propagated by this technique. Due to rapid deforestation and depletion of genetic stocks, concerted efforts must be made to evolve new methods for mass propagation and production of short duration trees. This required genetic manipulation to evolve vigorous and fast growing trees with a short reproductive cycle which can be mass propagated. The technology of tissue culture is competent to meet this challenge. Some of the chapters will provide the reader with a broad review of recent developments and progress in the eld of tissue culture.