Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin

The technology that probably has the greatest impact in agriculture is plant in-vitro culture technology. The technology involves the culture of plant tissues under aseptic conditions, and, with the use of plant growth regulators, induced to form true-to-type plantlets. It has a wide application which includes cloning and multiplication, multiplication of disease-free planting material, cryopreservation of plant tissues, haploid breeding, embryo-rescue and in genetic transformation.. However, the technique that has attracted commercial growers is on the cloning and the multiplication of clonal material. The various classification under this technique can be listed according to the type explants used in the primary culture:

1) micropropagation – the use of somatic tissues that enclosed the meristematic region such as axillary buds, and shoot and root tips, and the pre-formed tissues are induced in-vitro to grow out into a complete plant; and

2) embryoid production – the use of somatic tissues derived from tissues without meristematic activity such as those from the leaf, stem, etc., and are induced in-vitro to undergo embryogenesis to form somatic embryos or embryoids, and subsequently into a complete plant. This technique is much more challenging and generally applied to the monocotyledonous plants such as those belonging to the grass and palm families.