Processes, costs and traits of plants produced in tissue culture must be considered to develop effective crop production systems

Abstract

Plant tissue culture is used in horticultural production systems to provide many benefits including clean planting material, breeding support, rapid multiplication and introduction of new health-certified cultivars or for improved and uniform crop production. Much research is undertaken to develop and/or optimise tissue culture production systems of horticultural crops with a focus often on culture media, environment and processes to develop healthy plants in vitro. Sometimes tissue culture research considers the survival and growth of plants at deflasking and acclimatisation phase but there is less evaluation of the performance of tissue culture derived plants through the crop production cycle. While tissue culture provides benefits, the plants may have higher costs or negative attributes that reduce their usefulness or uptake in horticultural systems. Using examples of banana, ginger, pineapple and strawberry microplant production in Australia, various aspects of each tissue culture system and specific traits of plants produced from tissue culture that affect production will be discussed. The benefits and draw backs in plant performance must be identified and managed to develop systems to suit needs to each individual crop.