What is tissue culture propagation?
Tissue culture propagation, also known as micro propagation, is a way of dividing cells and mass producing the mother plant. Cells are taken from the meristematic tissue. For hostas, this is most often in a shoot tip. This tissue is then grown in growing auger in a test tube under sterile conditions in a laboratory. Temperature, lighting and feeding are manipulated to help these cells grow into tiny plants, which are further grown to resemble the parent plant. Tissue culture propagation has changed the hosta world because it does not take as long to introduce a new hosta cultivar to the public and prices of new plants have dropped. Thus, one plant can literally yield thousands of offspring. However, some hostas are not possible to reproduce using tissue culture. And, not all tissue culture reproduce exactly as the parent plant. The growers of the tissue culture must do something called “culling.” Culling is the process of looking at each plant to see if it matches the mother plant. If
