Concerning a fast alternative plant source for tissue culture:
If you just want to show the students how to do tissue culture, generate
callus, and maybe some differentiated roots or shoots, you might have good
luck with the following.
I have surface sterilized common garden bean seeds with 10% bleach, 10 min.
and sowed on MS plant tissue culture agar media. The beans germinate in a
week, and the students can cut various sections (cotyledons, hypocotyl,
radicle) and see how each grows on a variety of hormone combinations. We
have had very good luck generating masses of callus, and depending on the
year can also get lots of roots, and occasionally shoots.
I also use the Brassica Fast Plants for this. They germinate within a few
days. They are smaller than the bean however, and do not produce as much
mass as quickly as the bean. They do often produce anthocyanin-pigmented
tissue, which the students find intriguing and which allows one to slip in
some discussion of environmental control over gene expression.
Kathleen Archer
Dept. Biology
Trinity College
Hartford, CT 06106
e-mail: kathleen.archer at mail.trincoll.edu
Ph: (203) 207-2226
