Plant Propagation

Chapter 17 - Principles and Techniques of Micropropagation from Meristematic Tissue (Axillary Shoot Proliferation)

Chapter 18 - Principles and Techniques of Plant Tissue Culture from Nonmeristematic Tissue (Adventitious Origin)

(Note: While I encourage you to read all of Chapters 17 and 18 regardless of the edition of the textbook you've been using throughout the semester, please refer to the Assigned Readings section below for the specific content you will be responsible for because of the significant change in the way information is now presented in the most recent 9th edition.)

Though my memory is getting a bit hazy, this is a topic I once knew like the back of my hand as my Master's degree thesis title was "Aseptic Micropropagation of P.J.M. Hybrid Rhododendron." Not exactly a brilliant piece of work, but I did get one publication out of the effort.

We are going to spend a limited amount of time on this topic in this course despite the progress being made in the "aseptic" reproduction of plants (from roughly seventy-five pages in the 7th edition of the textbook to eighty-six pages in the 9th edition). The reason for this light touch is that you can take a full semester course on this topic by enrolling in BTC 426 - "Plant Tissue Culture Methods" during the fall semester. We'll learn more about this course when we visit the tissue culture lab on Friday, April 19th.

What we will cover in this course are the basic concepts of "aseptic" propagation by means of "preformed" meristems (exemplified by "microshoots" arising from the axillary buds on a shoot tip "explant") and/or "adventitious" meristems (exemplified by microshoots arising from unorganized "callus" tissue derived from a wide range of explant types).

In addition to developing a clear understanding of the pros and cons of plants generated from preformed versus adventitious meristems, we will also discuss the four (or five - depending upon the reference) "stages" of micropropagation systems.