Question

You have obtained a high yielding variety of tomato. Name and explain the procedure that ensures retention of the desired characteristics repeatedly in large populations of future generations of the tomato crop.

Answer 1

The desired characteristics of the tomato plant can be retained repeatedly in large populations of future generations through tissue culture and inbreeding.

Tissue culture or micropropagation is a technique in which the individual cells of a plant can be separated, multiplied in vitro, and regenerated into whole plants.

The plant part used to generate the whole plant is known as the explant. The explant is grown in the laboratory under sterile conditions using special nutrient media. The explants utilise their property of totipotency to grow into whole new plants. The progenies obtained in this case are called somaclones, as they are genetically identical to the parent.

With the help of micropropagation, thousands of plants can be produced in short time which will have the same genetic composition as their parents and thus will inherit all their desired characteristics. However, this techniques has its own disadvantage as it is not economically feasible in all cases

Inbreeding is another technique in which closely related individuals are mated. It is useful in the retention of desirable characteristics and the elimination of undesirable ones. In this case, the genetic composition of the progenies remains the same.