Plant Cloning

Question 1

What is cloning ?

Answer 1

Is the process of producing genetically identical cells or organisms from an existing organism.
It can occur naturally in some plants and animals but it can also be carried out artificially.

Question 2

What is vegatative propagation ?

Answer 2

• It is the production of plant clones from non -reproductive tissues . e.g root leaves and stems

Question 3

RSSTB

What are the natural vegative propagation thta plants use ?

Answer 3

• Rhiozomes
• Runners
• Suckers
• Tubers
• Bulbs

Question 4

What are rhiozomes ?

Answer 4

• They are stem structures that grow horizontally underground away from the parent plant
• They have nodes where new shoots and roots can develop
• Bamboo

Question 5

What are Runners ?

Answer 5

• They are similar to rhiozomes
• Thye main difference is that they grow above ground, on the surface of the soil.
• New shoots and roots can develop from nodes or form at the end of the runner.
• Strawberries

Question 6

What are suckers ?

Answer 6

• Suckers are shoots that grow from sucker buds (undeveloped shoots) and are present on the shallow roots of a parent plant.
• Elm tree

Question 7

What are tubers?

Answer 7

• Large underground structures that act ad a food store fro the plant .
• They are covered in ‘eyes’
• Each eye is able to sprout and form a new plant

Question 8

What are bulbs ?

Answer 8

• Bulbs are underground food stores used by some plants. New bulbs are able to develop from the orginal bulb and form new individual plants.

Question 9

What is is the name for plant growers ?

Answer 9

• Horticuluturists

Question 10

What are the ways to produce plant clones ?

Answer 10

• Cuttings
• Grafting
• Layering

Question 11

How do you produce a clone from cuttings

Answer 11

check book

Question 12

Plants can also be articially cloned . How ?

Answer 12

check book

Question 13

When is tissue culture mostly used ?

Answer 13

• Used to clone plants that dont readily reproduce or are endangered or rare
• ## It is used to grow whole plants from gentically engineered plant cells

Question 14

What is micropropagation ?

Answer 14

• It is when tissue culture is used to produce lots of cloned plants very quickly.
• Cells are taken from developing cloned plants and subcultured - repating this process creates large number of clones
  -Example - produce fields full of crop that has been gentically engenineered to be pest-resistant.

Question 15

What are the advanatages of Artificial Plant cloning ?

Answer 15

-Desirable gentic charactersitics are always passed on to clones. This doesnt always happen when plants repoduce sexually
- Allows plants to be cultured in any season
- Less space is required by tissue culture than would be needed to produce same number of plants in conventional growing methods.
- It produces lots of plants quickly compared to the time it would take to gow them from seeds.

Question 16

What are the disadvantages of artificial plant cloning ?

Answer 16

• Undesirable genetic charcteristics are always passed on to clones.
• Cloned plant populations have no genetic variabilty , so sa single diseases can kill them all
• Production cost are very high dur e to high energy use and the training of skilled workers , unsuitable for small scale production.
• Contamination by microorganisms during tissue culture could be disatrous and result in complete loss of plant being cultured.