DOST's tissue culture lab to boost Bulacan's ornamental plants industry
The bloom industry of ornamental plants in Guiguinito, Bulacan is now seen to get booming R&D support from the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) with the construction of the Innovative Tissue Culture Laboratory or iLAB.
About to be inaugurated in December 2021, the iLAB will make use of tissue culture technologies to promote sustainable propagation among ornamental plant growers in the municipality of Guiguinto.
Guiguinto is positioning itself to be the Garden Capital of the Philippines by 2025 due to its flourishing ornamental plants industry.
At present, ornamental plant growers rely on cutting, marcotting, and grafting to propagate their plants. Sadly, these conventional practices do not apply to some plants, so it leads to high mortality rates of the transplants.
But iLAB will supplement these conventional practices by offering new services and innovative technologies. One is to generate identical mature offspring of one plant with desirable traits. It can also produce multiple plants even without seeds or pollinators to produce seeds, or those with seeds or stems with low chances of growing.
iLAB can also offer novel hybrids and genetically modified plants with better agronomic traits and those with improved resistance against diseases, pests, and pathogens.
These services are especially fit for those who seek large-scale production of plants thus it will later contribute to boosting the ornamental plants industry in Guiguinto and perhaps for the whole province.
DOST Regional Office III in Central Luzon has previously released PHP2.9M under the science agency's Regional Grants-in-Aid program to start the project.
Joining in this R&D effort is the Institute of Plant Breeding of the University of the Philippines Los Baños who will provide gumamela hybrids to Guiguinto plant growers to propagate on their own.
Meanwhile, the Guiguinto local government will shoulder the PHP 9.7M construction of the laboratory.
iLAB is only one of the R&D projects and programs that will be showcased by the DOST in its Big 21 in 2021 launch on 7 September 2021, 10:00AM, to be broadcast live at the DOST Philippines Facebook page. (By David Matthew C. Gopilan, DOST-STII)
There are now 46 hybrid varieties of gumamela released in the country, based on a 2019 study of Dr. Pablito M. Magdalita and his colleagues from the University of the Philippines Los Baños. (Photo from pixabay.com)
