Tissue Culture and Micropropagation - Cloning Cauliflowers

Cloning cauliflowers in the classroom is a popular way to look at tissue culture and totipotency.

Plant cell/tissue culture is the in vitro culture of sterilised plant cells, tissues and/or organs on a nutrient medium. Unlike animal cells, many plant cells are totipotent, meaning that each cell has the capacity to regenerate the entire plant. This fact lies at the foundation of all tissue culture work.

Micropropagation is the regeneration of whole plants from small pieces of plant material. These small pieces (known as ‘explants’) are grown on sterile media and the plants produced can be potted up in soil and transferred to the glasshouse/field. Various parts of a plant can be cultured; plants have been regenerated from leaves, stems, roots, meristems, flowers and even pollen or ovules.

We've had a number of SAPS Associates get in touch to ask about difficulties they've been having with successfully cloning cauliflowers at GCSE.To help clarify the process, we've rewritten our existing instructions, based on the methods developed at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and have added an illustrated student sheet. Download them from the links on the right.

These are new versions of the instructions, so please let us know any feedback, particularly any unclear or missing instructions for teachers, technicians and students, and on the clarity of the illustrated student sheet.

The image shows a close up of Liparis loeselii, the endangered fen orchid, subject of a conservation programme at Cambridge University Botanic Gardens, where the SAPS team is based, and the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.