Clone Zone

Tissue culture production is a relatively young industry that is still evolving, and often misunderstood.

“The seed industry is thousands of years old and tissue culture is just a few decades old,” said Randy Strode, owner of Agri-Starts Inc., a Florida company that sells tissue culture liners to wholesale nurseries.

TC lab technicians use scalpels, microscopes and petri dishes to produce thousands of plants from one growing plant. They are grown in a sterile laboratory that is temperature- and light-controlled, disease-free and virus-indexed upon request.

When the plants are large enough to harvest or to be planted in soil, they are allowed to root and grow to 3-5 inches high. Then, they are sold as liners in 72-cell packs.

Pros and cons
One reason growers turn to tissue culture is speed. “Basically, we can ramp up crops much quicker than conventional growing,” Strode said. “If a product can’t be produced by seed, you can ramp it up by vegetative cuttings in the greenhouse, but you can do it much quicker in the lab.”

The controlled environment is another plus. Roses, hostas and hydrangeas often start with stock from tissue culture labs.

Two areas have been problematic for TC labs. First is the struggle for consistency and uniformity. If you plant a thousand seeds, 98-99 percent will germinate and the resulting plants will be consistent and uniform. However, when you clone plants in a lab, you end up with different sizes.

Second is not having the right product at the right time. Strode said growers don’t realize a 3-6 month lead time is necessary to produce a consistent product.

“People come to us too late with an order and nobody wins,” Strode said. “They don’t get the product; we don’t get to sell it, because we need more time.”

Consistent work; consistent plants
Both of these problems can be avoided if lab and grower plan for steady production.

“When we are planting three sizes one week, and three sizes the next week, and the week after that, the different sizes start to blend,” said Ty Strode, director of marketing for Agri-Starts. “We can pull small from one week, medium from another and large from another to have one uniform size to ship out.”

— Matt McClellan