Distance Learning Course -Learn How to Grow Plants with Tissue Culture
- Grow Ferns, Orchids, Cut Flowers or Other Plants
- Produce large quantities of new varieties fast and relatively cheap
- Develop a High Tech small business at home
- Discover what is possible with minimal investment using only a backyard garden
Tissue culture involves growing plants from very small sections (sometimes microscopic) in a laboratory. It is a propagation method which is being increasingly used. Tissue culture is not appropriate for many plants, but for others such as orchids, some indoor plants and in particular, many new plant varieties, it is a very popular propagation method.
Lesson Structure
There are 9 lessons in this course:
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Introduction including a review of basic plant nutrition.
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Stages in tissue cultured plant development
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Introduction to Plant Growth Science, biochemical processes and cell biology
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Transpiration, Photosynthesis and Respiration
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Plant Parts -Stems, Leaves, Roots, Buds,Flowers and fruits
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What happens as Tissue Matures
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Types of Plant Tissue
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Methods of Shoot Induction and Proliferation
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Advantitious Roots
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Terminology
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Plant Nutrients
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Major Elements
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Minor (Trace) Elements
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Total Salts
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How Plants Grow
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Factors Affecting Nutrient Uptake
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Nutrient Solution Preparation
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Hydroponic Nutrients
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Chelates
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Growing Media for Tissue Culture
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Water in Tissue Culture
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Chemical Analysis
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The Laboratory
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The Tissue Culture Laboratory
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Preparation Area
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Transfer Chamber
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Culture Growing Area
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Siting a New Lab
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Equipment Requirements for a Lab
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Chemicals
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Micropropagation Techniques
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Stock Plants -selection, planting, management
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Uses for Tissue Culture
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Problems with Tissue Culture
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Procedures
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Explants
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Sterilisation
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Nutrient Media
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Shoot Induction and Proliferation
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Rooting and Planting Out
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Stages in Plant Development
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Treating Plant Tissue with Sterilants
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Plant Hormones
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Chemical Growth Modification
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Principles of Using Plant Hormones
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Auxins, Cytokinins, Gibberellins, Abscisic acid and Ethylene.
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Other Chemical Treatments
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The Tissue Culture Environment
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Media Types -Filter Bridge, Agar, Liquid
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Nutrient Media Composition
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Cleanlines
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Light and Temperature
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Hormones
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Artificial Light
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Water Quality
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Water Treatgments
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Carbon Dioxide Effects
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Greenhouses
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Diagnosis of Plant Disorders
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Commercial Applications
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Understanding Genetics and Plant Breeding
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Biotechnology
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Cell Fusions
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Overcoming Pollination Incompatibility
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Pollination Biology
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Taking Plants out of Culture
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Hardening off Plants
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Growing Rooms or Chambers
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Rockwool Applications with Micropropagation
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Culture of Selected Species
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Begonia
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Cattleya
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Cymbidium
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Review of a range of other plants
Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the school, marked by the school's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.
Aims
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Explain the nature of plant growth processes, in the tissue culture environment.
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Determine growing media to use for tissue culture.
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Specify appropriate micropropagation procedures for different purposes.
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Explain the management of environmental control equipment used in tissue culture.
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Design a layout for a commercial tissue culture facility.
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Determine appropriate commercial applications for tissue culture.
What You Will Do
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Describe botanical terms which may be relevant to tissue culture.
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Explain different physiological processes which are relevant to tissue culture, including:
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Photosynthesis
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Transpiration
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Respiration.
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Differentiate between different types of plant tissue, including:
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Collenchyma
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Sclerenchyma
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Parenchyma
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Xylem
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Phloem
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Meristem.
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Describe the stages of plant growth during tissue culture of a specified plant.
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Explain the roles of the major and minor nutrients in tissue culture.
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Explain how five different specified plant hormones can be used in tissue culturing plants.
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Explain the functions of different types of components of media, including:
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Nutrients
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Carbohydrates
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Vitamins
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Growth regulators
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Amino acids
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Antibiotics.
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Differentiate between appropriate applications for both liquid and solid media.
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Compare two different specified formulae for tissue culturing, formulated for two different plant genera.
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Explain fifteen different terms relevant to micropropagation procedures, including:
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abscission
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aseptic
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autoclave
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axenic
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bridge
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in vitro
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deionize
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differentiate
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flaming
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hardening off
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indexing
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pipette
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precipitate
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transfer
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vitrification.
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Describe different methods of shoot proliferation used in tissue culture.
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Explain a method of sterilisation for plant tissue in an operation observed by you.
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Distinguish between tissue culture operations which use different plant parts, including:
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Meristem
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Shoot tip
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Organ
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Cell.
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Describe the steps in producing a plant by tissue culture, observed by you in a commercial facility.
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Explain how to remove a specified plant from tissue culture, into open culture.
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Compile a resource file of twenty different suppliers of environmental control equipment.
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Determine guidelines for establishing an appropriate, controlled environment, for growing a tissue culture.
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Describe two different greenhouse management methods for acclimatising tissue cultured plants.
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Explain how knowledge of short-day, long-day and day-neutral plants is relevant to tissue culture.
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Explain methods of ensuring water used in tissue culture is pure and sterile.
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Determine the equipment needed to set up a tissue culture laboratory.
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Describe the functions of the equipment listed.
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Develop on-going maintenance guidelines for a tissue culture facility which has the range of equipment listed.
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Determine consumable materials required for the day-to-day operation of a specified tissue culture facility.
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Determine the minimum skills needed to set up a tissue culture laboratory.
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Write a job specification for a tissue culture technician, which identifies skills needed in that job.
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Draw a floor plan to scale, for a workable tissue culture laboratory, designed for a specified purpose.
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Describe commercial micropropagation methods for three different plant genera.
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Distinguish between the unique requirements for successful micropropagation of six different specified genera.
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Analyse, from research, the use of tissue culture for plant breeding.
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Determine criteria for assessing the commercial viability of using tissue culture for propagating a given plant.
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Determine the number of plants of a specified plant variety which would need to be cultured, in order to make tissue culturing of that plant commercially viable.
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Assess the commercial viability of a specified tissue culture enterprise.
What Investment or Facilities are Needed for Tissue Culture?
When someone starts a plant tissue culture business; they do not need as much of an financial investment as with most other types of plant nurseries; largely because they do not need as much space (land).
There are nevertheless, certain things that you do need to have; somewhere sterile to propagate the plants, and a very clean environment in which to grow them on.
Commercially viable tissue culture businesses have been started in a space as small as a spare (converted) bedroom or a small backyard greenhouse.
Tissue Culture laboratories have operated successfully, employing a couple of full time staff in a business that uses as little as 500 square metres (dependant upon what is grown, how it is grown and at what stage it is marketed).
Once you have done this course, and better understand the process of tissue culture, you will be in a far better position to decide how to set up, what to grow, and how to grow plants with tissue culture techniques. You do not need to set up these facilities in order to complete this course.
Buying or Constructing Growing Areas is often the Main Intitial Cost
A room where conditions can be controlled is the ideal facility for hardening off.
Temperature, humidity and light etc. can be gradually changed, allowing the plant to adapt through a series of small changes - as the environment evolves from a growing cabinet environment to an environment the same as the outdoors.
1. A simple growing room can be built in part of a greenhouse.
Temperature and light can easily be controlled by conventional heating and cooling equipment, and if necessary, artificial lights and shadecloth. Humidity can be controlled by partial or full coverage of containers with plastic tents or bell jars. Fungicides (such as Benlate) should be used at recommended intervals to control damping off & other fungal problems. (Damping off is one of the major dangers at this stage). An 11 inch X 21 inch tray covered with 0.4 ml plastic is a good unit to work with. Humidity is gradually lowered by first lifting one corner of the plastic cover and progressively removing more and more of the cover, as the plants harden.
2. Another method involves using a growing room as above, but instead of a plastic cover or tent over the plants, to use an automatic misting system to maintain humidity.
3. A third method of maintaining humidity is to sit containers of cultured plants in a bath (or tray) of water. The whole growing area might then be covered partially with a plastic tent, or a tent with openings at the ends.
4. Commercial Growth Cabinets of many types are available.
5. There is a trend towards rooting plantlets out of tissue culture in a growth cabinet or growing chamber. This has several advantages:
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It is less expensive in terms of labour.
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Stronger root systems tend to develop.
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The use of the transfer room is reduced.
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More space is made available in the growing room (A 50% peat/50% perlite mix has been successfully used for rooting begonias this way).
6. A cold Frame may in some cases provide an adequate transition stage from culture. ‑bottom heat may be needed to keep the roots developing.
Following a stage in a greenhouse, growth cabinet or some other structure as outlined above, tissue cultured plants would normally be then eased into the outside world....spending time in either (or both) a standard greenhouse and/or a shade house, before being placed into the open.
FREQUENT QUESTIONS
Why Choose This Course
- Unique course materials (developed by our staff) and more current than some colleges (many reviewed annually); as a result, ACS graduates can be more up to date.
- We work hard to help you understand and remember it, develop an ability to apply it in the real world, and build networks with others who work in this field (It’s more than just serving up a collection of information –if all you want is information, buy a book; but if you want an education, that takes learning to a whole new level).
- Start whenever you want, study at your own pace, study anywhere
- Don’t waste time and money traveling classes
- We provide more choices–courses are written to allow you more options to focus on parts of the subject that are of more interest to you; a huge range of elective subjects are offered that don’t exist elsewhere.
- Tutors are accessible (more than elsewhere) – academics work in both the UK and Australia, 5 days a week, 16 hours a day. Answering emails and phone calls from students are top priority.
- We treat students as individuals –don’t get lost in a crowd. Our tutors communicate with you one to one.
- Extra help at no extra cost if needed. When you find something you cannot do, we help you through it or will provide another option.
- Support after you finish a course –We can advise about getting work, starting business, writing a CV, etc. We can promote students and their businesses through our extensive profile on the internet. Graduates who ask will be helped.
- Support from a team of a dozen professional horticulturists, living in different parts of the UK, and in both temperate and tropical climate zones of Australia.
About ACS
ACS was started in 1979 by John Mason, who at the time was a gardening author, horticultural consultant and lecturer in horticulture at several colleges across Melbourne (in Australia). Over the summer that year John discovered that there were thousands of applicants going to be turned away from horticulture courses at Burnley Horticultural College (now Melbourne University). There were simply too few courses being offered for the number of people wanting to study horticulture in Australia. This situation prompted a move to establish a correspondence course at Burnley; but after months of unsuccessful lobbying for support from government; John wrote a course, and with help from a colleague at Council of Adult Education, marketed it.
Standards were originally set in line with what were seen to be the standards of Australia's top horticultural college; and over the years, those standards have never been reduced. This makes our courses longer and more demanding than some other colleges; but it has also led to us building a credibility that stands tall in the horticulture industry across the world.
In the early 1990's John started visiting the UK and becoming involved with the horticulture industry there. Around the mid 1990's ACS began offering RHS courses, and in 2003, John was formally recognised for his contribution to British Horticulture by being made a fellow of the Institute of Horticulture. ACS, as a school, established an office and staff in the UK in 2001, and has expanded considerably since then. Today it is formally affiliated with five other colleges in the UK (including Warwickshire College); all of who license and deliver ACS courses.
A team of leading horticulturists work for the school's horticulture department, including 12 faculty members in both the UK and Australia
How You Study
- As soon as you enroll, we send an email to explain it all.
- We direct you to a short orientation video (downloadable over the internet) to watch, where our principal introduces you to how the course works, and how you can access all sorts of support services
- You are either given a code to access your course online, or sent out a CD or course materials through the mail (or by courier).
- Work through lessons one by one, each lesson typically having four parts:
- An aim -which tells you what you should be achieving in the lesson
- Reading -notes written and regularly revised by our academic staff
- Set Task(s) -These are practicals, research or other experiential learning tasks that strengthen and add to what you have been reading
- Assignment -By answering questions, submitting them to a tutor, then getting feedback from the tutor, you confirm that you are on the right track, but more than that, you are guided to consider what you have been studying in different ways, broadening your perspective and reinforcing what you are learning about
- Other - Your work in a course rarely stops at just the above four parts. Different courses and different students will need further learning experiences. Your set task or assignment may lead to other things, interacting with tutors or people in industry, reviewing additional reference materials or something else. We treat every student as an individual and supplement their learning needs as the occasion requires.
- We provide access to and encourage you to use a range of supplementary services including an online student room, including online library; student bookshop, newsletters, social media etc.
- We provide a "student manual", that is a quick solution to most problems that might occur
Recognition
- ACS has a highly respected international profile: by employers and academics alike. People are more aware of us than many other distance education schools –just do a search for “horticulture distance education courses” and see what comes up on the internet; or search for ACS Distance education on Facebook or Linked in, and see how many connections we have compared to other colleges.
- Recognised by International Accreditation and Recognition Council
- ACS has been educating people around the world since 1979
- Over 100,000 have now studied ACS courses, across more than 150 countries
- Formal affiliations with colleges in five countries
- A faculty of over 40 internationally renowned academics –books written by our staff used by universities and colleges around the world.
Extra Books or Reference Materials
- The course provides you with everything that you need to complete it successfully.
- Assignments may ask you to look for extra information (eg. by contacting nurseries, visiting gardens or searching the internet), but our school's resources and tutors are always available as a back up. If you hit a "roadblock", we can quickly send you additional information or provide expert advice over the phone or email; to keep you moving in your studies.
- Some students choose to buy additional references, to take their learning beyond what is essential for the course. If a student wants to buy books, we operate an online bookshop offering ebooks written by staff at the school. Student discounts are available if you are studying with us. The range of e books available is being expanded rapidly, with at least one new ebook being written and published by our staff every month.
- See www.acsebook.com for ebooks (available in pounds stirling). We also sell books through our Australian bookshop (selling in Australian dollars) at www.acsbookshop.com
