BRAINCAKEPros and Cons of Plant Cloning
Both taking cuttings and micropropagation produce large numbers of genetically identical plants. This has benefits and drawbacks for growers and for agriculture.
Advantages of plant cloning
• All plants have the same desirable characteristics, such as high yield, flavour or disease resistance, and they are uniform, which makes harvesting easier.
• It is much quicker than growing from seed, and a very large number of plants can be produced from one parent.
• Plants that are sterile or produce seeds poorly, such as seedless bananas and grapes, can be reproduced.
• Rare or endangered plants can be multiplied quickly.
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Key terms in this lesson
- monoculture
- A large area planted with a single, genetically uniform crop variety or clone, which increases vulnerability to disease or pest outbreaks.
- clone
- An organism, or group of cells, genetically identical to another, produced from a single parent by asexual reproduction (mitosis).
More in Cloning and Biotechnology
- Natural Clones in Plants
- Vegetative Propagation
- Artificial Clones - Cuttings
- Tissue Culture and Micropropagation
- Natural Clones in Animals
- Artificial Twinning
- Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer
- Pros and Cons of Animal Cloning
All 21 lessons in Cloning and Biotechnology · All OCR A-level Biology topics