Plant Cell Biotechnology and Agriculture: Impacts and Perspectives

Methods of cell and tissue culture, together with the regeneration of whole plants, are now routine for many plant species and are rapidly becoming key tools in the further development of agriculture and horticulture. At the base of the technology lies the ability to produce large numbers of identical (cloned) plants far more rapidly than with traditional practice. A number of commercially important species, including strawberries, tomatoes, oil palms, Douglas firs and orchids are already being produced in large numbers through tissue culture. A further dimension is provided by techniques of protoplast-fusion-somatic-hybridization and genetic manipulation. Harnessed to methods of automated mass propagation it should be possible to screen for, and develop much more swiftly, new commercially important varieties than was possible hitherto with conventional plant breeding approaches. In spite of good progress in many aspects of plant tissue culture there is, however, much to be learned about the nature of the system. Techniques of plant tissue culture are by no means yet generally applicable.