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Production of Genetically Variable Plants -

In some callus culture there is a major tendency of the callus tissue exhibiting a strong tendency toward numerical variation of the chromosomes in the cells after a number of serial subcultures.

The chromosomal instability in the cultured cells plays an important role in polyploidization of cells and genetically variable plants can be raised from such polyploidized cells by subsequent micropropagation.

Thus, tissue culture is proving to be a rich and novel source of variability with a great potential in crop improvement without resorting to mutation or hybridization. Such variant plants may show such, useful characters as resistance to a particular disease; herbicide resistance, stress tolerance, etc.

These changes would be valuable for crops normally propagated by vegetative methods. Moreover, plant breeders can exploit such variants for their breeding program.