In tissue culture, the propagation method used is usually categorized as?

• A. Grafting
• B. Asexual propagation
• C. Sexual propagation
• D. Layering

Answer: (B)

Tissue culture relies on asexual propagation to produce many genetically identical plants from small pieces of plant tissue. In this method, explants are grown on sterile nutrient media with hormones to induce shoot and root formation, so every resulting plant is a clone of the original parent. This eliminates genetic variation that comes with sexual propagation (seeds). While other vegetative methods like grafting and layering also reproduce plants without seeds, tissue culture is specifically the rapid, lab-based form of asexual propagation used to produce large numbers of uniform plants.