13 Oct 2021

PCT Starter Kit: What it is? How and When to use?

Anjali Singh

Table of Contents

Introduction

Since, we were getting so many questions from our newbie culturists about our starter kit, like what it is? What does it contain? How to use it? What’s the befit of buying the product? Can we use it on a specific plant? And many more!

So, we curated this article especially for our beginners, covering all features, benefits, and use cases of the PCT starter kit.

Even though you are new to the area, you might be familiar with some basic terms and requirements of tissue culture.

(If not! Then, visit our website now to and explore and learn all you want to, about tissue culture!)

Plant growing in natural conditions use soil as a medium to grow and absorb all their required minerals and nutrients from the medium. Further, the natural environment provides them with the light, humidity, and temperature required for their growth. But, when you change the suitable environment around the plant, it dies or doesn’t grow properly.

Then, how plants growing in completely different environmental conditions can be transferred to other areas, how can you grow plants on a large scale with only limited space, how to satisfy the commercial need of customers?

Then, tissue culture is the answer to all these questions.

Now you might ask “aren’t they possible to use conventional techniques?” Well, to some extent it will be but not as effective as tissue culture.

How plants are grown using Tissue culture?

The process of plants growing in tissue culture is almost similar to the conventional techniques, where plants require a medium, nutrients, and minerals, and a suitable environment to grow healthy. But unlike conventional techniques, in tissue culture:

Plants are provided with an artificial medium to support their growth
They are grown in a culture vessel rather than the open fields
The environment around the plants is artificially specifically created according to their needs. Unlike, the conventional techniques in which the environmental condition around plants depends on nature.

So, to culture plants in a lab, you require a culture space for both culturing and maintenance of plants, all basic requirements including growth media, agar, plant growth regulators, culture vessels, and several other tools and equipment.

How does PCT Starter Kit help?

PCT starter kit helps culturists by bringing together all the basic requirements of tissue culture in one affordable package. It contains MS media, agar, culture vessel, and PPM.

MS (Murashige and Skoog) Media (5 liters)

MS media contains all the nutrients and minerals (all micro and macroelements), required for the growth and development of most plants. However, some plants do not prefer the media for the growth because of higher or lower elements requirement than what is present in the media.

Therefore, it’s always recommended to first search for a protocol for the particular species of plant to check and follow the mentioned requirements and steps for better results on go!

The starter kit contains five bottles, each containing 4.54 grams of MS media. One bottle can be used completely to prepare one liter of media. The bottles make it convenient for the culturists to use the media directly without extra leg work of measuring out the media. So, in one starter kit, you can prepare 5 liters of media that can be used to grow a whole lot of plants, considering only 20-25 ml media is required in culture vessel and you can culture at least 3-4 explants in one bottle! Just, don’t make the bottles overcrowded!!

Agar (100 grams)

Agar is a solidifying agent. It is required to support the growth of developing plants. To hold them standing and supply their nutrients requirements. MS media is mixed in agar homogenously and sterilized for the culturing process.

The starter kit contains 100 grams of agar that is suitable for the preparation of 5 liters of culture media.

Some culturists also use gelatin in spite of using agar for their experiments, which serves the same purpose as agar. But it contains less impurity and is more clear and transparent than agar.

Plant Preservative Mixture (PPM) (10 ml)

Contamination is a severe issue in tissue culture labs. Some scientists use antibiotics for their cultures that are not that useful and negatively impact the growth and genome of cultured plants. Apart from this, the other solution is PPM.

Plant preservative mixture (PPM) is a trademark product of PCT that helps to prevent all kinds of contamination from any source. It protects your culture from all pathogens and provides it with all-around security.

The best part of PPM is that it’s only required in 1-2 ml per liter (or more in some cases) of media depending on the species and severity of the culture condition. Further, it’s autoclavable and can be sterilized easily with the culture media.

Glass Tissue Culture Vessels (3 x 250ml)

A perfect tissue culture vessel is necessary to provide the plants with a suitable microenvironment. Today, you can find several autoclavable plastic and glass; vented and non-vented containers for tissue culture.

However, a vented glass container is mostly preferred by scientists to improve plant development. The starter kit contains 3 culture vessel that is specifically designed for your tissue culture processes.

Plant cell technology is meticulous at providing and bringing the best solutions and services for plant tissue culturists around the world. Visit our website now for rest everything for your tissue culture process, including plant growth regulators, mask, and consulting services.

Happy Culturing!!