> > It takes me maybe two years to get a
> > reasonably sized little Sarracenia - possibly
> > tissue-culture can bring quicker results.
>
> I'm making a flagrant display of my ignorance about
> tissue culture here, but could someone please tell
> me how growing a plant from a few of its cells in a
> Petri dish could produce a full-grown plant quicker
> than planting a seed ? In both cases, you're starting
> out at about the same scale...
I hope someone else follows up, as I've never tissue-cultured
anything. I think in the initial stages of tissue-culture, the
cells can divide repeatedly and quickly, soon giving you a far
greater mass of undifferentiated cells than you would achieve
with a seedling. Once you try to get it to develop into normal
plants, then I don't really know. Maybe it isn't quicker, but you
get a lot more plants. If it is quicker, perhaps it's just because
of the large mass of cells that you have by then.
-- Clarke Brunt (clarke@brunt.demon.co.uk)