Question

Meristem culture helps in developing which of the following?

• A. Tall plants
• B. Disease resistant plants
• C. Virus free plants
• D. Hybrid plants

Hint:

Meristem culture helps in generating virus-free plants, making it an essential tool in plant tissue culture and disease management.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: Understanding meristem culture.
Meristem culture involves culturing the meristematic tissues of plants. These tissues are undifferentiated and can be used to propagate virus-free plants since they do not carry the viral load found in older tissues.
Step 2: Analyzing the options.
(1) Tall plants: This is incorrect. Meristem culture is not typically used to create tall plants, but rather to propagate virus-free plants.
(2) Disease resistant plants: This is incorrect. While meristem culture helps in producing virus-free plants, it is not specifically used for disease resistance.
(3) Virus free plants: Correct — Meristem culture is specifically used to propagate virus-free plants, as the meristematic tissue is typically free of infections.
(4) Hybrid plants: This is incorrect. Meristem culture is not focused on producing hybrid plants, but rather healthy, virus-free plants.
Step 3: Conclusion.
The correct answer is (3) Virus free plants, as meristem culture is commonly used for this purpose.

Answer 2

Meristem culture takes advantage of a specific biological feature of the shoot apical meristem -- its very high rate of cell division and lack of a well-developed vascular system. Testing each option against that feature:

1. Tall plants: Plant height is governed by hormonal and genetic growth factors, not by whether the propagating tissue was meristematic; meristem culture is not aimed at increasing plant height.
2. Disease resistant plants: Disease resistance is typically a heritable genetic trait bred into a plant line or introduced by genetic engineering, not something conferred simply by culturing meristem tissue.
3. Virus free plants: Because viruses spread through a plant via its vascular tissue, and the meristematic dome at the shoot tip divides faster than the virus can move into it and lacks fully developed vascular connections, meristem tissue is frequently free of virus even when the rest of the plant is infected. Culturing just this tip regenerates a virus-free plant.
4. Hybrid plants: Producing hybrids requires combining genetic material from two different parent plants through pollination or fusion techniques; meristem culture propagates tissue from a single existing plant and creates no new genetic combinations.

Only the virus-exclusion property of the shoot apical meristem explains why this specific technique is used, ruling out height, disease resistance in general, and hybridization.

Therefore, the correct answer is virus free plants.