9. STRATEGIES FOR ENHANCEMENT IN FOOD PRODUCTION
III. SINGLE CELL PROTEIN (SCP)
- It
is the protein derived from
single-celled organisms.
- It is an alternate source of
proteins for animal and human nutrition. E.g. Spirulina (a blue green
alga), Methylophilus methylotrophus
(a bacterium).
- Spirulina is
rich in protein, minerals, fats, carbohydrate & vitamins. It is grown on
materials like waste water from potato
processing plants, straw, molasses, animal manure & sewage. This also
reduces environmental pollution.
- A
250 Kg cow produces only 200 g protein/day. But 250 g Methylophilus methylotrophus produces 25 tonnes protein. It is due to high rate of biomass production and
growth.
IV. TISSUE
CULTURE
- A
technique of growing plant cells/tissues/organs in sterile culture medium under
controlled aseptic conditions.
- The
ability to generate a whole plant from any cell/explant is called totipotency.
An explant is any part of a plant that is grown in a test tube under
sterile nutrient media.
- The
nutrient medium must provide a carbon source (such as sucrose), inorganic
salts, vitamins, amino acids and growth regulators like auxins, cytokinins etc.
- The
method of producing thousands of plants in very short time through tissue
culture is called micropropagation.
- These
plants will be genetically identical to original plant, i.e., they are somaclones.
- Tomato,
banana, apple etc. are produced by this method.
- Tissue
culture is also used to recover healthy plants from diseased plants. The meristem
(it will be virus-free) from infected plant is removed and grown in vitro to
obtain virus-free plants. Scientists have cultured meristems of banana,
sugarcane, potato, etc.
- Somatic
hybridization: It is the fusion of protoplasts from two
different varieties of plants (with desirable characters) to get hybrid
protoplasts. It can be grown to form a new plant called somatic hybrids. Protoplasts
can be isolated after digesting the cell walls of plant cells.
E.g. Protoplast of tomato + protoplast of potato → pomato.
This hybrid plant has the characteristics of tomato &
potato. But it has no all desired characteristics for its commercial utilization.
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