Nair, M.K.Anitha Karun2014-05-272014-05-272007-02-08Indian Hort. 1997 v-42 i-2 p-38-41http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/1897The conventional breeding techniques in improving plantation crops are slow and time-consuming, because of their iong juvenile phase, heterozygous outcrossing nature, and large area needed for their experimentation. Biotechnology can only be considered as a supplementary new tool to solve specific problems. Generally the plantation crops are beset with a narrow genetic base, lack of an inbred population, adequate land for field testing the selections and hybrids for yield and quality characters. The most popular and widely commercialized global application of biotechnology has been in the sphere of plant tissue culture— micropropagation. In India, only micropropagation in cardamom has been successfully commercialized among plantation crops.enbiotechnologyplantation cropsArticle