Vol. 3, Issue 1, Part A (2021)

Tissue culture an in vitro technique of plant propagation has made it possible to develop a full plant from minute plant parts (explant) in a very short span of time. It is skilled process and require those people who are fully aware about this technical process. To assure stability and uniformity in this process is of immense significance. Sometimes this stable process of in vitro culture gets disturbed thus variations occur, which are called as somaclonal variations. Gene mutation or changes in epigenetic markings are the causes of modest somaclonal variations. These somaclonal variations can create some serious threats to the stability of this in vitro cloning. These variations inhibit the formation of true to type plant material. On the contrary, these somaclonal variations has become a hotspot for breeders as genetic variability is obtained rapidly without using Hi-tech and sophisticated technologies in horticultural crops. Both dominant and recessive mutations can lead to somaclonal variations. It has been seen that most of the Somaclonal variations are either useless or of limited use, but these variations are easy to detect than those of conventional mutagenesis. In this paper, we focused on reasons behind these variations and detection methods along with examples of horticultural crops and their applications has been reviewed.