Tissue Culture 100 Hours Certificate Course

There are 9 lessons:

1. Introduction including a review of basic plant nutrition.
   • Stages in tissue cultured plant development
   • Introduction to Plant Growth Science, biochemical processes and cell biology
   • Transpiration, Photosynthesis and Respiration
   • Plant Parts -Stems, Leaves, Roots, Buds,Flowers and fruits
   • What happens as Tissue Matures
   • Types of Plant Tissue
   • Methods of Shoot Induction and Proliferation
   • Advantitious Roots
   • Terminology
2. Plant Nutrients
   • Major Elements
   • Minor (Trace) Elements
   • Total Salts
   • How Plants Grow
   • Factors Affecting Nutrient Uptake
   • Nutrient Solution Preparation
   • Hydroponic Nutrients
   • Chelates
   • Growing Media for Tissue Culture
   • Water in Tissue Culture
   • Chemical Analysis
3. The Laboratory
   • The Tissue Culture Laboratory
   • Preparation Area
   • Transfer Chamber
   • Culture Growing Area
   • Siting a New Lab
   • Equipment Requirements for a Lab
   • Chemicals
4. Micropropagation Techniques
   • Stock Plants -selection, planting, management
   • Uses for Tissue Culture
   • Problems with Tissue Culture
   • Procedures
   • Explants
   • Sterilisation
   • Nutrient Media
   • Shoot Induction and Proliferation
   • Rooting and Planting Out
   • Stages in Plant Development
   • Treating Plant Tissue with Sterilants
5. Plant Hormones
   • Chemical Growth Modification
   • Principles of Using Plant Hormones
   • Auxins, Cytokinins, Gibberellins, Abscisic acid and Ethylene.
   • Other Chemical Treatments
6. The Tissue Culture Environment
   • Media Types -Filter Bridge, Agar, Liquid
   • Nutrient Media Composition
   • Cleanlines
   • Light and Temperature
   • Hormones
   • Artificial Light
   • Water Quality
   • Water Treatgments
   • Carbon Dioxide Effects
   • Greenhouses
   • Diagnosis of Plant Disorders
7. Commercial Applications
   • Understanding Genetics and Plant Breeding
   • Biotechnology
   • Cell Fusions
   • Overcoming Pollination Incompatibility
   • Pollination Biology
8. Taking Plants out of Culture
   • Hardening off Plants
   • Growing Rooms or Chambers
   • Rockwool Applications with Micropropagation
9. Culture of Selected Species
   • Begonia
   • Cattleya
   • Cymbidium
   • Review of a range of other plants

• You will learn a wide variety of things, through a combination of reading, interacting with tutors, undertaking research and practical tasks, and watching videos. Here are just some of the things you will be doing:
• Describe botanical terms which may be relevant to tissue culture.
• Explain different physiological processes which are relevant to tissue culture, including:
  • Photosynthesis
  • Transpiration
  • Respiration.
• Differentiate between different types of plant tissue, including:
  • Collenchyma
  • Sclerenchyma
  • Parenchyma
  • Xylem
  • Phloem
  • Meristem.
• Describe the stages of plant growth during tissue culture of a specified plant.
• Explain the roles of the major and minor nutrients in tissue culture.
• Explain how five different specified plant hormones can be used in tissue culturing plants.
• Explain the functions of different types of components of media, including:
  • Nutrients
  • Carbohydrates
  • Vitamins
  • Growth regulators
  • Amino acids
  • Antibiotics.
• Differentiate between appropriate applications for both liquid and solid media.
• Compare two different specified formulae for tissue culturing, formulated for two different plant genera.
• Explain fifteen different terms relevant to micropropagation procedures, including:
  • abscission
  • aseptic
  • autoclave
  • axenic
  • bridge
  • in vitro
  • deionize
  • differentiate
  • flaming
  • hardening off
  • indexing
  • pipette
  • precipitate
  • transfer
  • vitrification.
• Describe different methods of shoot proliferation used in tissue culture.
• Explain a method of sterilisation for plant tissue in an operation observed by you.
• Distinguish between tissue culture operations which use different plant parts, including:
  • Meristem
  • Shoot tip
  • Organ
  • Cell.
• Describe the steps in producing a plant by tissue culture, observed by you in a commercial facility.
• Explain how to remove a specified plant from tissue culture, into open culture.
• Compile a resource file of twenty different suppliers of environmental control equipment.
• Determine guidelines for establishing an appropriate, controlled environment, for growing a tissue culture.
• Describe two different greenhouse management methods for acclimatising tissue cultured plants.
• Explain how knowledge of short-day, long-day and day-neutral plants is relevant to tissue culture.
• Explain methods of ensuring water used in tissue culture is pure and sterile.
• Determine the equipment needed to set up a tissue culture laboratory.
• Describe the functions of the equipment listed.
• Develop on-going maintenance guidelines for a tissue culture facility which has the range of equipment listed.
• Determine consumable materials required for the day-to-day operation of a specified tissue culture facility.
• Determine the minimum skills needed to set up a tissue culture laboratory.
• Write a job specification for a tissue culture technician, which identifies skills needed in that job.
• Draw a floor plan to scale, for a workable tissue culture laboratory, designed for a specified purpose.
• Describe commercial micropropagation methods for three different plant genera.
• Distinguish between the unique requirements for successful micropropagation of six different specified genera.
• Analyse, from research, the use of tissue culture for plant breeding.
• Determine criteria for assessing the commercial viability of using tissue culture for propagating a given plant.
• Determine the number of plants of a specified plant variety which would need to be cultured, in order to make tissue culturing of that plant commercially viable.
• Assess the commercial viability of a specified tissue culture enterprise.

The quality of this course is second to none, from the in-depth learning you will get to the expert individual mentoring you will receive throughout your studies. The mentors for this course are:

Susan Stephenson

BSc in Applied Plant Biology (Botany) Univ. London 1983.

City and guilds: Garden Centre Management, Management and Interior Decor (1984)

Management qualifications in training with retail store. Diploma in Hort level 2 (RHS General) Distinction.

Susan Stephenson is a passionate and experienced horticulturist and garden designer. She has authored three books, lectures at 2 Further and Higher Education Colleges, teaching people of all ages and backgrounds about the wonders of plants and garden design, and tutors many students by correspondence from all over the world.

Susan studied botany at Royal Holloway College (Univ of London) and worked in the trading industry before returning to her first love plants and garden design. She is therefore, well placed to combine business knowledge with horticulture and design skills. Her experience is wide and varied and she has designed gardens for families and individuals. Susan is a mentor for garden designers who are just starting out, offering her support and advice and she also writes, delivers and assesses courses for colleges, introducing and encouraging people into horticulture and garden design.

In 2010, Susan authored a complete module for a Foundation degree (FDSC) in Arboriculture.

Susan holds the RHS General with Distinction. She continues to actively learn about horticulture and plants and (as her students will tell you) remains passionate and interested in design and horticulture.

Steven Whitaker

Diploma in Garden Design (Distinction) – The Blackford Centre, Gold Certificate of Achievement in Horticulture, Level 2 NVQ in Amenity Horticulture, Level 1 NOCN Introduction to Gardening, – Joseph Priestly College, BTEC Diploma in Hotel, Catering and Institutional Operations (Merit), Trainer Skills 1, & 2, Group trainer, Interview and Selection Skills – Kirby College of Further Education

Steven has a wealth of Horticultural knowledge, having ran his own Design and Build service, Landscaping company, and been a Head Gardener. His awards include five Gold awards at Leeds in Bloom, two Gold awards at Yorkshire in Bloom and The Yorkshire Rose Award for Permanent Landscaping. Steven has worked with TV’s Phil Spencer as his garden advisor on the Channel 4 TV Programme, “Secret Agent”.

He is qualified to Level 2 NVQ in Amenity Horticulture and has a Diploma in Garden Design which he passed with Distinction. Steven’s Tutor and Mentor was the Chelsea Flower Show Gold Award-winning Garden Designer, Tracy Foster. He also works for a major Horticultural Commercial Grower in the field of Propagation and Craft Gardening. Steven lives in Leeds where he is a Freelance Garden Designer and Garden Advice Consultant.