Question

Assertion: Virus free plants can be produced from virus infected plants by means of meristem culture.
Reason: Virus fails to grow during the growth of host tissue in the artificial medium.
A. Both Assertion and Reason are correct and Reason is the correct explanation for Assertion.
 B. Both Assertion and Reason are correct but Reason is not the correct explanation for Assertion.
C. Assertion is correct but Reason is incorrect
D. Both Assertion and Reason are incorrect

Answer 1

Hint: Hybridisation process is usually employed for increasing the productivity and quality of organisms. Plant breeding can be employed to produce varieties that are resistant to diseases and insect pests.

Complete answer:
Artificial hybridization is defined as the process of crossing two genetically different individuals having desirable traits to obtain an offspring having superior traits than the parents. This includes animal breeding and plant breeding.

Classical plant breeding requires the crossing of pure lines along with artificial selection to obtain plants with required characteristics like higher yield and disease tolerance. Fresh plant tissue can be developed through tissue culture by moving it to an artificial setting in which it can begin to grow and function. This technique of growing thousands of plants via tissue culture is called micro-propagation. Another important use of this approach is the regeneration of healthy plants from diseased plants. Although the plant is infected with a virus, the viruses are absent in the meristem. So, meristem can be extracted and cultivated in vitro to obtain virus-free plants. Viruses cannot be produced in normal microbiological broths or in agar plates. Rather, they need an adequate host cell to expand. Viruses thus require cells inside the host animal or tissue culture cells extracted from animals or plants to grow.

Hence, the correct answer is option (C)

Note: The capacity to create a new plant from any cell or plant part is known as totipotency. Through this technique, it is possible to propagate many plants in shorter periods.