Vegetative reproduction
Plants are very good adapted organisms. They have the ability to produce offspring both sexually and asexually according to the environmental conditions. Humans have been taking advantage of this adaptation to grow food and some other valuable resources from plants
Try this...
You will need:
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Plastic cups or plastic bottles cut in halves.
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A potato
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An onion
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A cutting of a plant with buds
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A runner of a plant.
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Water
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Soil
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Toothpicks (can be useful)
Introductory questions:
1. How can we grow plants without using seeds?
2. Which advantages can we get by growing plants asexually?
3. Which plants are usually harvested on this way?
4. What do plant tissues have to be with this process?
Buds are made of embrionic tissue compossed mostly of stem cells that can turn into a complete new plant with the proper stimuli.
Cuttings are pieces of plant stems that can be put in water or soil, and produce roots to grow into a complete plant. You can take a cutting of your favorite plant (or even a tree) and get a sample for you!
Runners Are horizontal stems that grow naturally in some plants like strawberry or clover. A runner can grow covering a specific area of the soil and develop roots from the buds that are in it. You can cut runners and put them into a cup or a pot with water or soil and grow your own plants.
Some plants grow modified stems or shoots stems to store starch. These stems are called tubers and grow underground, but when they get the proper stimuli, they can grow into a new plant. Potatoes are an example of tubers. You can set a tuber in a cup close to water, or half covered with soil, and you can see a new plant growing from its "eyes."
Root sprouts or suckers grow from adventitious buds in roots. They act just like runners, but they go underground, such as blackberries, roses or mango trees.
Some other modified stems include corms, bulbs and rhizomes. These structures are used for storage, and in many ocassions, for reproduction. An example of corm is tulip and gladiole, you can find bulbs in onions, and rhizomes in ginger and ferns. You can put a bulb in a cup of water, and you will see how it grows in a plant.
Don't worry if the bulb doesn't fit in your cup, you can put toothpicks around it to hold the bud on top of the cup.
Vegetative reproduction in plants
Tissue culture. Cloning plants in the laboratory
