Tubers are a type of enlarged structure that plants use as storage organs for nutrients, derived from stems or roots. Tubers help plants perennate, provide energy and nutrients, and are a means of asexual reproduction.
Plant propagation is the process by which new plants grow from various sources, including seeds, cuttings, and other plant parts. Plant propagation can refer to both man-made and natural processes.
A clonal colony or genet is a group of genetically identical individuals, such as plants, fungi, or bacteria, that have grown in a given location, all originating vegetatively, not sexually, from a single ancestor. In plants, an individual in such a population is referred to as a ramet. In fungi, "individuals" typically refers to the visible fruiting bodies or mushrooms that develop from a common mycelium which, although spread over a large area, is otherwise hidden in the soil. Clonal colonies are common in many plant species. Although many plants reproduce sexually through the production of seed, reproduction occurs by underground stolons or rhizomes in some plants. Above ground, these plants most often appear to be distinct individuals, but underground they remain interconnected and are all clones of the same plant. However, it is not always easy to recognize a clonal colony especially if it spreads underground and is also sexually reproducing.
Aerial roots are roots growing above the ground. They are often adventitious, i.e. formed from nonroot tissue. They are found in diverse plant species, including epiphytes such as orchids (Orchidaceae), tropical coastal swamp trees such as mangroves, banyan figs, the warm-temperate rainforest rata, and pohutukawa trees of New Zealand. Vines such as common ivy and poison ivy also have aerial roots.
In biology, stolons, also known as runners, are horizontal connections between parts of an organism. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton. Typically, animal stolons are exoskeletons.
Micropropagation or tissue culture is the practice of rapidly multiplying plant stock material to produce many progeny plants, using modern plant tissue culture methods.
Fragmentation in multicellular or colonial organisms is a form of asexual reproduction or cloning, where an organism is split into fragments upon maturation and the spilted part becomes the new individual.
Layering is a vegetative propagation technique where the stem or branch of a plant is manipulated to promote root development while still attached to the parent plant. Once roots are established, the new plant can be detached from the parent and planted. Layering is utilized by horticulturists to propagate desirable plants.
A plant cutting is a piece of a plant that is used in horticulture for vegetative (asexual) propagation. A piece of the stem or root of the source plant is placed in a suitable medium such as moist soil. If the conditions are suitable, the plant piece will begin to grow as a new plant independent of the parent, a process known as striking. A stem cutting produces new roots, and a root cutting produces new stems. Some plants can be grown from leaf pieces, called leaf cuttings, which produce both stems and roots. The scions used in grafting are also called cuttings.
Plant breeders use different methods depending on the mode of reproduction of crops, which include:
In biology, a propagule is any material that functions in propagating an organism to the next stage in its life cycle, such as by dispersal. The propagule is usually distinct in form from the parent organism. Propagules are produced by organisms such as plants, fungi, and bacteria.
A plantlet is a young or small plant, produced on the leaf margins or the aerial stems of another plant.
A seedless fruit is a fruit developed to possess no mature seeds. Since eating seedless fruits is generally easier and more convenient, they are considered commercially valuable.
Basal shoots, root sprouts, adventitious shoots, and suckers are words for various kinds of shoots that grow from adventitious buds on the base of a tree or shrub, or from adventitious buds on its roots. Shoots that grow from buds on the base of a tree or shrub are called basal shoots; these are distinguished from shoots that grow from adventitious buds on the roots of a tree or shrub, which may be called root sprouts or suckers. A plant that produces root sprouts or runners is described as surculose. Water sprouts produced by adventitious buds may occur on the above-ground stem, branches or both of trees and shrubs. Suckers are shoots arising underground from the roots some distance from the base of a tree or shrub.
Plant reproduction is the production of new offspring in plants, which can be accomplished by sexual or asexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction produces offspring by the fusion of gametes, resulting in offspring genetically different from either parent. Asexual reproduction produces new individuals without the fusion of gametes, resulting in clonal plants that are genetically identical to the parent plant and each other, unless mutations occur.
Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion while the lower part is called the rootstock. The success of this joining requires that the vascular tissues grow together. The natural equivalent of this process is inosculation. The technique is most commonly used in asexual propagation of commercially grown plants for the horticultural and agricultural trades. The scion is typically joined to the rootstock at the soil line; however, top work grafting may occur far above this line, leaving an understock consisting of the lower part of the trunk and the root system.
Important structures in plant development are buds, shoots, roots, leaves, and flowers; plants produce these tissues and structures throughout their life from meristems located at the tips of organs, or between mature tissues. Thus, a living plant always has embryonic tissues. By contrast, an animal embryo will very early produce all of the body parts that it will ever have in its life. When the animal is born, it has all its body parts and from that point will only grow larger and more mature. However, both plants and animals pass through a phylotypic stage that evolved independently and that causes a developmental constraint limiting morphological diversification.
Plant tissue culture is a collection of techniques used to maintain or grow plant cells, tissues, or organs under sterile conditions on a nutrient culture medium of known composition. It is widely used to produce clones of a plant in a method known as micropropagation. Different techniques in plant tissue culture may offer certain advantages over traditional methods of propagation, including:
In plants, vivipary occurs when seeds or embryos begin to develop before they detach from the parent. Plants such as some Iridaceae and Agavoideae grow cormlets in the axils of their inflorescences. These fall and in favourable circumstances they have effectively a whole season's start over fallen seeds. Similarly, some Crassulaceae, such as Bryophyllum, develop and drop plantlets from notches in their leaves, ready to grow. Such production of embryos from somatic tissues is asexual vegetative reproduction that amounts to cloning.
Nurse grafting is a method of plant propagation that is used for hard-to-root plant material. If a desirable selection cannot be grown from seed, it must be propagated asexually (cloned) in order to be genetically identical to the parent. Nurse grafting allows a scion to develop its own roots instead of being grafted to a rootstock.
