Services
Tissue culture and micropropagation
In vitro multiplication of plants for Australian horticulture, emerging-industry crops, forestry, and conservation. Clean, genetically uniform material produced at scale from small tissue samples.
What we do
Plant tissue culture, also called micropropagation or in vitro propagation, is the laboratory cultivation of plant cells, tissues, or organs on sterile nutrient media. Small explants, often just a few millimetres of shoot tip or axillary bud, develop into complete plants. Each plant is a clone of the starting mother plant.
Because cultures are maintained in sterile conditions, the resulting plants are free from viruses, bacteria, and fungal pathogens that accumulate in conventionally propagated stock. Multiplication rates are high — tens of thousands of plants can be produced from a single source in a defined timeframe.
Research basis. AgriFutures Australia identifies tissue culture as relevant infrastructure for several emerging-industry crops, including pongamia, where clonal propagation is economically essential because seed-grown plants show too much variability to be commercial (see AgriFutures' technical and economic appraisal of Pongamia pinnata in northern Australia).
Where tissue culture is used
- Emerging-industry crops — agave, pongamia, tea tree oil, native foods such as finger lime, Kakadu plum, lemon myrtle, and Davidson plum. Many of these are AgriFutures priority species.
- Commercial horticulture — clean planting material for Hort Innovation levied crops including berries, bananas, ginger, macadamia, and avocados where disease-free stock is essential.
- Variety development — rapid multiplication of new cultivars and maintenance of clean mother stock for plant breeders and variety programmes.
- Conservation — propagation of rare and endangered species where limited starting material or difficult conventional propagation constrains recovery programmes.
- Research — propagation of experimental material, protocol development, and trial work for universities, industry bodies, and research programmes.
The tissue culture workflow
- Initiation. Selected plant material is surface-sterilised and established on a starter nutrient medium under sterile conditions.
- Multiplication. Cultures are subcultured at defined intervals to produce large numbers of genetically identical plantlets.
- Rooting. Shoots are transferred to rooting media formulated for each species to develop healthy root systems.
- Acclimatisation. Plantlets are hardened to greenhouse and then ambient conditions before dispatch.
Working with us
We work on projects of all scales, from small protocol-development trials to commercial production runs. For each species we confirm scope, indicative timeframe, and starting material requirements before quoting. Contact us with the species, approximate quantities, and target delivery window, and we will reply with an initial assessment.
References
- AgriFutures Australia (2024). A technical and economic appraisal of Pongamia pinnata in northern Australia.
- Hort Innovation. Hort Innovation Strategy 2024–2026.
- Mohsin et al. (2025). Assessing the sustainable economic benefits of clonal tissue culture in fruit-tree industries: a scenario-based avocado case study in Australia. Advances in Agriculture. DOI