Tissue culture involves growing a tiny piece of a plant, such as stem, leaf or root on a special nutrient medium, which gives rise to hundreds of tiny embryos which grow into small plantlets that can be transferred to the field.

A team of HAU scientists led by T M Varghese recently devised a protocol for mass propagation of two pharmaceutically important herbs, solanum nigrum and cardiospermum halicabacum.

Varghese and colleagues S Babber, S C Goyal and Vinita Bhatia raised hundreds of plants of both these species and successfully transferred them into the field.

Dr Varghese said solanum plants raised through this technique were stronger and two to three times larger than parent plants. Their seeds were also bigger than those of conventionally raised plants.

Varghese and HAU scientist Meena Kumar also raised lakhsof plants of commercially important chrysanthemum varieties using tissue culture.

The university had earlier perfected tissue culture techniques to grow datepalm, sugarcane, potato and some ornamental plants. Scientists at HAU's biotechnology and molecular biology department are now working on genetically engineered basmati rice and disease resistant varieties of sorghum.

HAU vice-chancellor Prof J B Chowdhury said scientists have identified disease resistance genes in sorghum which would be transferred into high-yielding varieties.

Similarly genes conferring resistance to drought and salinity would be introduced into basmati varities. Biotechnology research at HAU is being funded by the Rockefeller Foundation of USA, the Department of Biotechnology, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and state agencies.

A centre for research and application in plant tissue culture, a joint venture of the Science and Technology department of Haryana and the department of biotechnology, would soon be set upat HAU campus, Chowdhury added.