"Plant Tissue Culture" has been practised for the in vitro and aseptic cultivation of any plant part on a nutrient medium for producing plantlets, artificial seeds and plant chemicals throughout the year. Application of the technique of plant tissue culture has gradually unfolded new vistas of plant science and industry. Success in the technology and application of in vitro methods is largely due to a better understanding of the commonly employed nutrient media are usually composed of six classes of components namely;

• Major inorganic salts
• Trace elements
• Vitamine
• Purines, Aminoacids and Amides
• Auxine and carbohydrates

Most of the studies concerning the mass propagation of economically important plants are mainly confined to the optimization of media ingredients or other culture parameters, using conventional media components and equipments are very costly. Should this technique be adapted for commercial purpose, the immediate need would be the use of low cost media and equipment. Use of unorthodox ingredients would minimize the media cost significantly. However, as these ingredients contain highamount of impurities which may be toxic to the cultured plant, standardization of their concentration and easier method of purification plays a crucial role.Keeping all these in mind a low cost media has been developed comprising of few naturally available ingredients, replacing the conventional synthetic plant tissue culture media like M.S. Whites etc.

GELLING AGENT
Gelatineous source of materials are mixed together in a specific proportion to obtain desired solidification which gives identical performance compared to agar solidified medium. The sources are from available plants. The raw materials are available throughout India. The product is less expensive and less cumbersome to produce than Agar Agar which is made out of a marine Algae. Studies have shown no harmful effect on the agent on cultured tissues and tested over a large number of species.

USES

A.Low Cost Medium:-

• Mass propagation of plantlets of commercially important plant.
• Easy rooting of shoots
• Hardening of plantlets before field transfer

B.Gelling Agent
To be used as a substitute of Agar Agar in microbial and plant tissue culture medium.

C. PLANTS TESTED
Chrysanthemum, Vanda, Albizzia, Carrot, Arbus.

D. SCALE OF WORK
Both the process have developed at laboratory scale. Further upscaling studies are being carried out.