Plant Tissue Culture

Plant Tissue Culture: Methods and Applications in Agriculture contains the proceedings of a symposium based on the UNESCO training course on Plant Tissue Culture: Methods and Applications in Agriculture, sponsored by UNESCO and held in Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, on November 8-22, 1978. This book contains two major sections encompassing plant tissue culture: Part A, which focuses on methodology, and Part B, which emphasizes the applications. The first chapters present the requirements for a tissue culture facility, and then describe nutrition, media, and characteristics of cultured plant cells and their growth and behavior in vitro, particularly with reference to embryogenesis and organogenesis. Discussions on protoplasts, mutagenesis and in vitro selection, meristem culture, freeze preservation, and cytogenetic techniques complete Part A. In Part B, androgenesis, in vitro fertilization, and embryo culture are discussed. Some chapters follow on the application of in vitro methodology to selected crops. The final chapter deals with the potential of tissue culture in the biosynthesis of secondary products. This text will prove useful to those who must thoroughly plan their research in tackling problems in agriculture that are amenable to the tissue culture approach.