Question

Reproducing new plants by cells instead of seeds is known as:
A) Biofertilizer       
B) Mutation
C) Tissue culture     
D) Antibiotics

Answer 1

Hint: Reproduction is a process. So, all irrelevant options that don’t describe a process or method and rather tell about substances should be eliminated (i.e. Biofertilizers and Antibiotics). Among the remaining, the process that can be used for plant propagation must be our answer.


Step by step solution:
Among the provided options, Biofertilizers and Antibiotics are clearly not life processes. Biofertilizers contain living microbes that help in enhancing soil fertility and improve overall plant growth. Antibiotics are chemical substances that kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria and could be used as medicine. So both those options can be discarded.
Every organism has a specific DNA sequence of its own and any kind of change in that DNA sequence of a cell is called a mutation. It can occur either by mistake during the DNA replication stage of cell division or by mutagens.

Plant tissue culture can be best described as a group of methods utilized for culturing cells, tissues, or protoplasts, taken from the parent plant and transferred to a chemically synthesized nutrient culture media. The growth media is most commonly agar. The cultured tissue continues to survive and function in the medium by growing via multiplication. This process is carried out under a sterile and controlled laboratory environment with optimum light, temperature, and humidity. This technique is popularly referred to as micropropagation.
So, option C is correct.

Note: While mutation is responsible for changes in the DNA sequence of a cell, it does not mean that new plants are getting reproduced or propagated by them.