Question

The chemical known as colchicine interferes with microtubule dynamics, and so it can interfere with cell division. Treating plant tissues that develop seeds with colchicine can produce new plants that are polyploid. This is commonly done in plant cultivation. Why might plant growers seek to make polyploid plants?

Answer 1

Polyploidy has been a significant contributor in plant evolution and is a common phenomenon observed in plants. Polyploid organisms often exhibit increased vigor and are known to produce greater results in comparison to diploid plants . Thus this gives them an edge and a superiority over their diploid relatives.Plant breeders have known the beneficial effects of polyploids toward total yield and have exploited this property of plants to produce better cultivars. Polyploidy can contribute to increased size and number of plant organs (gigas effect), controlling of deleterious mutations, increased heterozygosity, enrichment of gene pool, and hybrid vigour.  

These features can help in significantly increasing producty quality and yield. Hybrid cultivars can be produced which could grow in limiting and stressful conditions. Polyploids can also be used to bridge the problem of incapacitated crossing over between two plants. Thus new varieties can be produced which are virile.

Even though polyploidy softens the effects of deleterious mutations, it can itself result in reduced fertility due to increased meiotic error rates. This leads to the production of seedless varieties of many crops.

Polyploidy can be manipulated to double the genome thus resulting in restoration of fertilitiy.

Thus polyploidy can bring a revolution in agriculture by promoting increased yield within limited space and time. This can help in meeting the ever increasing global demand and also in serving to customised requirements of clients.