Role of plant tissue culture in improvement of horticultural crops

Plant tissue culture comprises variety of in vitro techniques, methods and strategies that are used toimprove many economically important plants. Tissue culture can be used to create genetic variabilitythrough somaclonal variations that can further be exploited by using techniques like micropropagation, embryo culture, somantic embryogenesis, meristem culture and protoplast fusion for improvement ofhorticultural crops. Severaltraits, like stress resistance, increasing shelf life, virus free plants have beenincorporated in horticultural plants raised by tissue culture techniques. The applications of various tissueculture approaches like micropropagation, somaclonal variations, somatic embryogenesis, anther culture, meristem culture, Protoplast fusion and embryo culture in horticultural crops are reviewed in this article.