The Real Know How

This is a completely new topic for me. I had no idea that it was possible to grow small plants from plant tissue samples and to do so at home.

Question: Why would anyone do this?

Answers via Wikipedia (I’ll list just 5 of the possible reasons):

– To “copy” a great plant (produces nice fruit, is a high yielding plant, is hardy, etc)

– To produce mature plants quickly.

– To produce multiples of plants in the absence of seeds or necessary pollinators to produce seeds.

– To produce plants from seeds that otherwise have very low chances of germinating and growing, i.e.: orchids and nepenthes.

– To preserve a rare and endangered plant species.

According to Wiki, micropropagation is a widely used in forestry. Should we really be producing cloned forests?

The process does seem to have several steps and takes care as you have to try to get your working environment and the tissue culture you are working with as sterile as possible.

I find micropropagation fascinating but it also brings up all kinds of questions for me. What do you think? Micropropagation – thumbs up or thumbs down?