Meristem: Source of Virus-Free Plants — NEET Biology
📚 Practice ConceptWhich part of the plant is best suited for making virus-free plants and why?
Which of the above statements regarding plant tissue culture techniques are correct? S1: Meristem culture is utilized for obtaining virus-free plants because the apical and axillary meristems are generally free of viral infection. S2: Micropropagation is the method of producing a large number of genetically identical plants, referred to as somaclones, in a short duration. S3: The nutrient medium for in vitro plant culture typically contains only inorganic salts and a carbon source, without the need for growth regulators. S4: Somatic hybridisation involves the fusion of protoplasts from two different plant varieties to produce a new hybrid plant. S5: Pomato is a commercially highly successful somatic hybrid plant extensively used in agriculture.
View solution & NCERT explanation
Correct answer: C — S1, S2, and S4 only
The core concept here is plant tissue culture, including meristem culture, micropropagation, somaclones, and somatic hybridisation. S1: Correct. Meristem culture is used to recover healthy, virus-free plants from diseased ones because meristems are typically virus-free. This is directly stated in NCERT. S2: Correct. Micropropagation is indeed the method for producing thousands of genetically identical plants (somaclones) rapidly through tissue culture. S3: Incorrect. The nutrient medium must provide a carbon source (like sucrose), inorganic salts, vitamins, amino acids, and growth regulators (like auxins, cytokinins). The statement excludes growth regulators. S4: Correct. Somatic hybridisation is defined as the process where isolated protoplasts from two different plant varieties are fused to form hybrid protoplasts, which can then grow into a new plant. S5: Incorrect. Pomato was formed by fusing protoplasts of tomato and potato but it 'did not have all the desired combination of characteristics for its commercial utilisation', thus it was not commercially successful. Therefore, statements S1, S2, and S4 are correct.
What does NCERT say about Which part plant best?
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