Meristem culture: A potential technique for in vitro virus-free plants production in vegetatively propagated crops

Lacking an organized immune system and being of sessile nature, plants face many biotic stresses like viruses, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and insects in their environments. The bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and insects may be limited to the specific time period of the plants. At the same time, once viruses integrate themselves to the plant genome, they become part of the plants and keep damaging plants from generation to generation. That is why viruses are one of the most important challenges to plants due to lack of cures, and they cause potential quality and yield loss in plants’ performance. The losses become more severe in asexually propagated plants such as banana, potatoes, sugar cane, garlic, ornamentals, etc. Meristem culture is a plant tissue culture technique in which a plant’s fastest growing tissue is cultured, and it is very helpful to produce virus-free plants, as the rate of meristem growth is always higher than virus cell to cell transmission. The technique of virus-free plant production using meristem was initially developed in 1952, and at present, it is frequently used to eradicate plant viruses from many economically important crops. The meristem culture combined with heat, chemicals, and radiation is proven to be more effective in virus elimination in many plants. Further, meristem tissue has higher genetic stability and growth potential. This chapter describes detail about virus-free plant production in different economically important crops using meristem culture.