Tissue Culture Advances in Apple: Progress made in apple tissue culture

Apple is a rosaceous fruit tree, belonging to genus Malus. Conventional propagation methods in apple include grafting, cutting, budding and stooling. But all of these methods have limitations for less success rate. Also the quality of planting material produced through these techniques is not very good. Apple is infected by number of viruses like Apple Mosaic Virus, Apple Chlorotic Leaf Viris, Apple Stem Pitting Virus & Apple Stem Growing Virus. These viruses are not eradicated through conventional methods of propagation and get transmitted from rootstocks to scion. Hence we need to have the method which can give us large quantity of planting material and also ensures virus elimination. Tissue culture is the only technology with which we can get large quantity and high quality planting material in apple. In the present scenario, where the growers face the problem of shortage of disease-free quality planting materials, the in vitro propagation is a potential means to tackle this problem. In addition, expanding the existing genetic resources in fruit crops through genetic manipulation would add genetically improved elite clones for use in micropropagation. Further, the conservation