Micropropagation of ornamental plants
When Gottlieb Haberlandt started culturing isolated plant cells in artificial nutrient media he was mainly interested in cell to cell relationships within complex multicellular organisms. Discussing the results of his experiments he pointed out that inspi
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Introduction
When Gottlieb Haberlandt started culturing isolated plant cells in artificial nutrient media he was mainly interested in cell to cell relationships within complex multicellular organisms. Discussing the results of his experiments he pointed out that inspite of remarkable cell growth, cell division was never observed (Haberlandt 1902). He speculated that "growth enzymes" obviously were necessary for stimulating cell division, and he recommended the addition of extracts from meristem tissue ("Vegetationsspitzen") to the nutrient solutions. He stressed as well the use of embryo sac fluid. Haberlandt expected that the method of cultivating isolated plant cells would permit investigations of important problems from a new experimental approach. At that time he did not consider that cell culture could be useful for commercial propagation of plants. More than fifty years after Haberlandt's pioneering publication, plant cells forming callus could be stimulated to regenerate either shoots or roots by manipulating the auxin - cytokinin balance in the medium (Skoog and Miller 1957). Since the 1960s these findings initiated the development of in vitro propagation technologies which are, in principle, applicable to all higher plants. Consequently, the commercial application of plant cell, tissue and organ culture was focussed from the beginning on those species and cultivars that were in high demand and in low supply, because of difficulties in traditional vegetative propagation. Morel (1960, 1964) was the first who described the mass propagation of orchids. He estimated that four million plants per year could be achieved from one single explant of Cymbidium. This discovery led to the foundation of commercial tissue culture laboratories by orchid growers, who soon created new terms like "meristem culture" for culturing shoot tips, "meristemming" for establishing in vitro cultures and "mericloning" for propagation in vitro. Plants derived from in vitro culture are offered on the market as "mericlones". Since the early 1970s the orchid in vitro propagation techniques were modified and applied first to other ornamentals and later to fruit and nut crops, agronomic crops, medical plants and forest genera. Today, a hundred years M. Laimer et al. (eds.), Plant Tissue Culture © Springer-Verlag Wien 2003
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after the publication of Haberlandt's experiments in vitro mass propagation has been tested for all species of economic importance.
Current status of micropropagation
The first review of plant propagation through tissue cultures was published by Murashige in 1974. He listed 128 genera with potential for in vitro multiplication, including 22 orchid genera and 43 genera of other ornamental plants. Four years later, Murashige (1978) stressed that all economically important orchids, except Paphiopedilum, could be multiplied in vitro. Additionally, 194 genera from various plant groups including 118 ornamental genera were judged to be clonab1e through tissue culture. The list was expected to be incomplete,
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