Question

Tissue culture is an achievement in plant breeding. What is a somaclonal?
Describe the production of somatic hybrids.

Answer 1

Hint: Tissue culture is the process in which the clones of the plants can be produced by the vegetative parts of the plants. The plants produced are the exact clones that are genetically similar to the parent plant. The vegetative parts are the somatic parts. The clones produced are called soma clones.

Complete answer:
The plants have two types of parts- the reproductive parts which is the flower and the somatic parts like stem, leaf, roots consisting of somatic cells. The tissue culture in plants is a method of producing new plants. The new plants produced by using the somatic cells are the exact copy of the parent plant. They are morphologically as well as genetically identical. These plants are known as soma clones. The disadvantage of this type of clone is that the undesirable trait of the plant is passed to the offspring.

To overcome this the technique of somatic hybridisation is being used. Somatic hybridisation is the process in which the protoplasm of the two plant cells is mixed together to result in a new hybrid plant that has the characteristics of both species.

The technique used is-
- Identification of the protoplasm.
- Fusion of the desired protoplast.
- Identifying and selecting the required hybrid
- Culture of the desired cells.
- Regeneration of plants.

Note: Somatic hybridisation is carried out by selecting a superior characteristic plant-like increased level of vitamins, minerals, high yielding etc. This results in plants with superior characters. This method is not time-consuming and the desirable hybrids can be obtained in less time. An example of somatic hybridisation is pomato.