11 Mar Micropropagation in relation to crop improvement.
फसल सुधार के लिए फसलों में सूक्ष्मप्रजनन Various methods of tissue culture and molecular biology have shown tremendous potential for creation, conservation and precise characterization of genetic variability for improvement of fruit, field, forest crops, medicinal and aromatic plants. Micropropagation of crops is now one of the best and most successful examples of the commercial application of tissue culture technology. Propagation of plants from very small plant tissues/ parts under in vitro conditions in the laboratory is called micropropagation. Commercial application of tissue culture started in 1970 in USA with the micropropagation of orchids. Since then it has seen tremendous expansion globally both in terms of number of production units and the number of plants, as well. With the estimated global market of 15 billion US$ per annum for tissue cultured products, even with the exponential expansion in the industry, the demand far exceeds production, leaving enough scope for expansion. Due to higher labour costs in the developed countries, micropropagation industry is now being expanded in the developing countries, with lower wage scales to multiply plants at much cheaper rates even for the international markets. Thus Indian micropropagation industry, though a late starter by almost a decade, has expanded exponentially from 5 million plants annual capacity in 1988 to around 200...