Plant Cloning Facts
Plant cloning is an ancient form of producing desired outcomes in plant species. Through the years, the best quality plants have survived using the technique. It has certain advantages over using seeds in that growers know the type of plant they will get; however, it also limits diversity, which makes plants more susceptible to disease and pests.
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History
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Farmers and gardeners have used plant cloning as a technique to duplicate the success of good plants for centuries. The asexual ability of plants to replicate themselves makes the cloning process relatively easy.
Significance
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According to Janet Marinelli of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the significant advantage plant cloning holds over using seeds is the rapid duplication of desired genes. There is no way to know what genes a seed possesses, but cloning a plant will produce an exact replica.
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Benefits
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Economically, cultivating existing plants with good yields ensures that farmers will most likely get an identical yield from that new plant, providing similar situations are sustained.
Features
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The process of cloning a plant is relatively easy compared to that of animals. Simply trim a piece of the root from a plant, supply it with nutrients and plant it in soil. The resulting growth will be identical to the original plant.
Considerations
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Through the process of cloning, the University of Arkansas states that a number of different varieties of foods have been created that consumers prefer over traditional plants. Most notable among these are seedless varieties of grapes and oranges.
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- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Josef F. Stuefer
