Biotechnology and induced mutations in ornamental plant improvement

Flowers are used for all occasions worldwide and can be compared with 'fashion designing'. Consumers are always looking for preferably novel flower traits, e.g., fragrance, different flower colour and shape, early flowering, less water consumption, and long shelf-life. The worldwide floricultural industry is worth over 50 billion Euros and can serve as food security, has socio-economic impact, and can generate employment. The cost of ornamental plant production is high mainly due to high labour costs in the developed countries, and consequently, production units are being outsourced to the developing countries including Kenya, India, Tanzania, and others. With plant tissue culture technologies, plants are readily regenerated in horticultural crops. In vitro conservation of elite germplasm of various crops has been established, for long- and short-term storage e.g., cryopreservation and low-temperature cold storage. Somaclonal variation among in vitro regenerated plants is a major concern due to the loss of genetic fidelity that could be prevented by cryo-storage. Molecular markers have become handy to study the genetic uniformity of regenerated plants. Embryo rescue is done by rescuing developing hybrid embryos, developed by interspecific or intergeneric hybridization. Anther culture is being used for doubled haploid breeding. Haploids are useful for producing haploids and for trait fixing. Micropropagation via organogenesis for direct shoot formation is well exploited commercially for large-scale plant production, especially by the floriculture industry. Bioreactor technology is quite handy for the large-scale production of somatic embryos and in vitro shoots, e.g., temporary immersion systems. In vitro mutagenesis and selection are quite effective for producing useful mutants by mutagen treatment of callus, cell suspension, protoplasts, and in vitro shoots of ornamental plants. The genetic transformation approach is well suited for producing novel flower colour, e.g., blue carnation flowers. The major problem with plant tissue culture is genotypic dependence, somaclonal variation, and contamination; major advantages are the availability of planting material throughout the year, large-scale plant production in a short time, and in a small place. In this presentation, different plant tissue culture techniques and their applications, mutagenesis, and prospects of gene editing in floriculture will be discussed; highlight examples of roses, gerbera, orchids, saintpaulia, chrysanthemum, and begonia.