Tissue culture pushed for propagation of plants

Tissue culture, a technological breakthrough in the propagation of plants and trees, is now being promoted by several scientists. For tree propagation, this technology is now being advocated in UP Los Banos, and the Ecosystem and Research Development Bureau of the DENR.

Tissue culture is a process or technique of making protoplast, cell, tissue and organs grow in a culture medium outside the organism, under controlled conditions of light, temperature, and humidity under aseptic environment. Totipotency, that is the unique capacity of individual cells to give rise to the whole plant properties, contributes greatly to the advancement in this field.

This technology is done by making the differentiate tissues to differentiated (callus formation) and then differentiation is gain induced by adding growth regulators. It offers several advantages over conventional method of asexual propagation, or reproduction without the union of male and female germ cells. Dr. Mercedes U. Garcia of UPLB cited the following advantages:

• preserves the dwindling endangered tree species;

• affords large scale cloning of the difficult to propagate elite germplasm;

• develops novel variations so as to engineer a tree with better biomass and yield;

• appropriate to large scale production of secondary metabolites;

• multiplies rare genocides and F1 recombinant material;

• develops broad genetic base as in somatic hybridization;

• ensures transport of disease-free planting materials to clone banks at local nurseries;

• a solution to the problem of seed production;

• in dioecious plants – enables production of desirable female plants;

• embryo is rescued

• germplasm conservation

Tissue culture has also its limitations, among them are the cost since it needs more sophisticated propagation facilities, not all trees can be propagated under this technique, and some say that trees raised from this technology have lower disease resistance and less vigor. Be that as it may, the advantages overshadow the disadvantages.

Reforestation in the country through forest plantation establish has not yielded significant successes as expected. Forest degradation continues to be a major environmental problem despite deliberate government and stakeholder’s efforts to regenerate denuded forest areas. At this juncture, tissue culture is current and essential.