Organ Culture

Organ culture is the culture, on an appropriate medium, of whole plant organs rather than of isolated cells or protoplasts - the organs commonly used include embryos, anthers, ovaries, roots and shoots. Figure 5.6 traces the general organ-culture pathway starting from a leaf: isolated cells taken from the leaf are cultured in culture medium, raised through successive stages into plantlets, and finally hardened to the natural environment before being ready for transplantation. Because organ culture works with an already largely organised piece of tissue rather than a single dedifferentiated cell, it is often a comparatively direct and reliable route to regenerating a complete plant, and it forms the conceptual basis both for …