5.18B understand how micropropagation can be used to produce commercial quantities of genetically identical plants with desirable characteristics

Micropropagation produces identical plants because the same gene from a plant tissue is used to produce large numbers of plants, which will all have the same genetic information. This allows all the plants to have identical characteristics.

Advantages of Micropropagation:
- produces a greater yield of crops
- faster growth
- propagation of rare species
- plants can be grown at any time of the year
- the modified gene can be passed on

Disadvantages of Micropropagation:
- identical population and limited variation can make the whole population susceptible to a certain disease.
- plants vulnerable to a change in environment
- limited variation