It was around 1970, I had just completed a 5-year breeding project aiming at fxing fower colour in gerbera progenies: white, yellow, pink, and red; colour homogeneity was sound, but size and shape still required some improvement. The problem was defnitely resolved by Murashige and Skoog, USA who published a reliable protocol for gerbera micropro- gation. In short, my gerbera seed lines were immediately rendered obsolete by this e- cient cloning system, able to produce millions of plants of a matchless and previously unknown homogeneity, the uniformity of fower shape and colour being the basic requi- ments for the market. The success of micropropagation resulted in a tremendous growth in gerbera fower production worldwide, and this species conquered a leading place in the foriculture industry. This personal experience stresses the impact of micropropagation on the genetic improvement research strategies in ornamentals. Micropropagation has become "in- sive", especially in ornamental plant material issues. Today, hundreds of protocols exist; however, only a modest percentage of them are exploited economically. Thus, only micropropagation of plants with a high market price range, like orchids for instance, has proved cost-effective and achieved great success. Micropropagation is a labour-intensive system: hand-power is estimated to rep- sent 60-70% of total costs. This explains the outsourcing of the major labs in developing countries where labour is cheaper. Nevertheless, certain industrial protocols remain a proprietary technology of leading labs, mostly western, with the exception of Japan and Taiwan.
While ornamental plants are produced mainly for their aesthetic value, the propagation and improvement of quality attributes such as leaf types, flower colour and fragrance, longevity and form, plant shape and architecture, and the creation of novel variation are important economic goals for the expanding ornamental industry. In Protocols for In Vitro Propagation of Ornamental Plants, leading researchers in the field compile step-wise protocols for rapid plant multiplication and in vitro storage of major commercially viable ornamental plants. Divided into two sections, Section A contains chapters mainly on micropropagation of cut and pot flowers with detailed protocols involving in vitro culture-explants, medium preparation, detailed medium table, shoot initiation and proliferation, root induction, in vitro plant hardening, and field transfer, and Section B delves into reviews on topics such as in vitro production of sweet peas, the status of transgenics in ornamental plants, in vitro conservation, the status of floriculture in Europe, azalea phylogeny, and thin cell layers. As part of the highly successful Methods in Molecular Biology series, chapters include introductions to their respective topics, lists of the necessary materials, step-by-step laboratory protocols, and notes on troubleshooting and avoiding known pitfalls.
Comprehensive and clear, Protocols for In Vitro Propagation of Ornamental Plants presents key techniques that will be of great use to floriculturists, researchers, commercial companies, biotechnologists, and students dealing with ornamental plants.
