Articles
REDUCING TISSUE CULTURE COSTS FOR COMMERCIAL PROPAGATION
Culture tubes: Scintillation vials with polypropylene screw-on lids are suggested for initial cultures; polycarbonate tubes with coloured polypropylene screw-on lids are recommended for all subsequent stages of culture.
Washing of tubes: Glassware washing machines designed for laboratories are expensive; domestic-type dishwashers can be used.
Media preparation: Deionized water is cheaper than distilled water.
Agar costs are related to agar purity – Difco Bacto Agar is expensive, cheaper agars can be used.
Grocery sugar can be used in place of purified sucrose.
Domestic pressure cookers can be used in place of autoclaves.
Dissection/Transfer area: Laminar flow chambers can be substituted for by portable chambers fitted with a blower and air filter system.
In many cases glass tunnels alone can be used as an alternative to laminar flow chambers.
Sterilized Petri dishes containing 10 pieces of filter paper are suggested as inexpensive sterile dissecting surfaces.
Incubation: Phytotron chambers are expensive to buy, run and maintain.
Satisfactory alternatives are time clock operated light banks, and the least expensive form uses vertical space in greenhouses by hanging culture tubes in plastic "sausages".