Industries
Conservation
Supporting conservation of threatened species, botanic gardens, and ecological restoration.
Tissue culture for conservation
Plant conservation faces significant challenges in Australia, with many species threatened by habitat loss, climate change, invasive species, and disease. Tissue culture provides tools for conservation that complement other approaches like habitat protection and seed banking.
Ex-situ conservation through tissue culture creates living plant populations outside their natural habitat. These collections serve as insurance against extinction, provide material for research and restoration, and enable plant exchanges between conservation institutions.
We work with botanic gardens, conservation organisations, and government agencies on propagation of threatened species and plants significant for conservation programs.
Applications
Conservation applications
Endangered species
Propagation of threatened and endangered plant species for ex-situ conservation, providing insurance populations and material for habitat restoration.
Botanic gardens
Supporting living collections with propagation of rare and significant specimens. Enabling plant exchanges between institutions.
Ecological restoration
Producing plants for habitat restoration and revegetation projects, including species that are difficult to propagate by conventional methods.
Seed banks
Complementing seed banking with living plant propagation for species where seed storage is difficult or viability is limited.
Benefits
How tissue culture supports conservation
Multiplication from limited material
Conservation often involves working with very limited plant material. Tissue culture can produce many plants from small tissue samples, enabling multiplication when only few individuals remain.
Difficult-to-propagate species
Many threatened species are difficult to propagate by conventional methods. Tissue culture protocols can be developed for species where seed germination is poor or cutting propagation is unsuccessful.
Disease-free stock
Conservation collections need to be free from pathogens that could spread to other plants or back to wild populations during restoration. Tissue culture provides pathogen-free plants.
Genetic preservation
Tissue culture can maintain specific genotypes including significant individuals, local provenances, and genetic diversity within species.
Disease response
Myrtle rust response
Myrtle rust (Austropuccinia psidii) poses a significant threat to Australia's Myrtaceae species, a family that includes many iconic Australian plants like eucalypts, paperbarks, and bottlebrushes. Some species are highly susceptible and face decline in the wild.
Tissue culture supports myrtle rust response by enabling propagation of resistant individuals for breeding programs, maintaining disease-free collections of susceptible species, and producing clean stock for conservation plantings.
Partnership
Working with conservation organisations
We work with botanic gardens, government conservation agencies, and non-profit conservation organisations on propagation projects. This may include contract propagation of specific species, development of tissue culture protocols for new species, or ongoing support for conservation collections.
Our location in Canberra provides access to the Australian National Botanic Gardens and other conservation institutions in the national capital.
Discuss conservation propagation
Contact us to discuss tissue culture support for your conservation program.