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Tissue culture to become affordable

To the aid of farmers:The Tissue Culture Lab at the University of Agriculture Sciences, Bangalore.

BANGALORE: The tissue culture laboratory of the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore is on the threshold of making tissue culture an “affordable technology” by evolving low-cost methodology for producing plants under this system.

Tissue culture expert B.N. Sathyanarayana, principal investigator at the tissue culture lab, told The Hindu that the experiments being conducted in this regard had produced positive results. “These efforts are sure to reduce the cost of tissue culture plants, especially banana saplings, by about 30 per cent,” he said.

He said though tissue culture plants are known for high yields, their high cost had confined their reach to only a few rich farmers.

A reduction in cost will help increase their reach among small and marginal farmers leading to increase in their income levels.

“The low-cost methodology is expected to make tissue culture laboratory itself a cottage industry and encourage more number of unemployed youth to set up such labs in small towns. Such a trend will ensure that farmers spend less on transportation costs for getting tissue culture plants,” he said.

The lab's experiments have shown that it is possible to reduce costs by replacing agar — a costly gelling agent used for plant multiplication — with low-cost support materials such as cotton fibre, which can be re-used. Similarly, it is possible to reduce costs by using filtered water instead of the costly distilled water and also harness natural light instead of artificial lighting for plant production.

Set up at a cost of Rs. 1.5 crore in 2006-07, the UAS-B's Tissue Culture Lab presently has a capacity to produce two million plants a year which is expected to be increased to five million by the end of this year. He pointed out that the tissue culture variety of plants especially the banana saplings being produced by this lab are popular among farmers.

The lab also produces orchids, anthurium and two foliage varieties of ornamental plants.

According to him, this is the first lab in the country to develop protocol for producing plants through tissue culture method for a sweet variety of pomelo ( chakota).

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