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  • From: Alliums <garlicgrower AT earthlink.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Re: Is Micropropagation Organic?
  • Date: Wed, 05 Nov 2003 14:59:23 -0500

Paul wrote:



What I want to know is if micropropagation is considered organic.

I think what you are describing is tissue culture.

In fact
you can rapidly propagate a plant this way.

Depends on the plant just how "rapid" the propagation is. Serious plant propagators tend to be very patient people! ;-)


Apparently this is
where a lot of those "plug" trays come from. I first thought they were from
seed.

Tissue culture is a LOT more expensive than seeds -- if it was that cheap and quick, *all* seed potatoes would be formed from tissue culture because it's the best way to produce virus-free potatoes. Seed Savers Exchange, USDA and the other major seed storage facilities are forced to use tissue culture periodically to keep viruses out of potatoes, other tubers and small fruits. It's a common and accepted technique to save heirlooms that have otherwise been contaminated. Garlic varieties really should be tissue cultured from time to time, but no one has the money for it. :-(


But on the other hand, we are very close to the same
techniques used to genetically modify plant DNA.

As someone who had reviewed (entirely too!) many books on GMOs, it's not the same thing at all. One might buy or have a lab give one the cells of a plant one wants to play with, but the whole GMO process afterwards is *very* different.

To ban tissue culturing would doom many heirloom plants to oblivion. As a seed saver and propagator myself, I think "organic" only comes into play once you have a viable seed or plant to put in the ground. It's about growth rather than what one must do to resurrect a dying variety or species.





Dorene Pasekoff, Coordinator
St. John's United Church of Christ Organic Community Garden

A mission of
St. John's United Church of Christ, 315 Gay Street, Phoenixville, PA 19460





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