Application and Improvement of In Vitro Culture Systems for Commercial Production of Ornamental, Fruit, and Industrial Plants in Poland

This work focuses on the achievements of Polish researchers in the field of vegetative reproduction of plants under in vitro conditions. For more than 50 years, micropropagation methods have been used in Poland whenever vegetative reproduction is necessary. Most perennial horticultural crops, such as fruit plants, the majority of ornamental geophytes, and some vegetables (e.g., rhubarb and horseradish), require clonal reproduction owing to their high heterozygosity, i.e., their offsprings when reproduced from seeds, do not repeat the parental characteristics. Various goals have been pursued in the development of regenerative and in vitro propagation systems for each of the aforementioned groups of plants, such as pathogen elimination, reproduction of healthy plants, rapid multiplication of newly obtained valuable breeding lines and cultivars, and breeding to obtain polyploids, haploids, and doubled haploids. Owing to the growing interest of researchers and plant producers in environmentally friendly technologies, one of the sections is devoted to the issue of biotization of micropropagated plants.