RIYADH: By propagating disease-free, genetically uniform plants in controlled environments, in vitro culture technologies enable the mass cultivation of vital crops and endangered flora while reducing agriculture’s environmental footprint, strengthening food supplies and helping restore degraded ecosystems.
“Next-generation in vitro culture, concomitant with modern biotechnology, becomes a potent tool to deal with food security, biodiversity, and environmental sustainability problems. These technologies provide new possibilities for quick expansion, upgrading, and storage of plant materials in areas with challenging climatic conditions,” according to Dr. Mohammad Faisal, a professor of plant biotechnology and environmental ecology at King Saud University.
Faisal told Arab News: “Newly developed in vitro culture systems involve the cultivation of plant cells, tissues, or organs in a laboratory environment that is highly sterile and tightly controlled. When combined with biotechnology (e.g., molecular markers), genetic screening, and recent field breeding, it offers a method for producing many healthy, disease-free cultivars while maintaining advantageous genetic traits.”
“This approach is particularly crucial for rare, endangered, medicinal, and economically important plants that cannot be cultivated by usual methods,” he added.
In vitro culture enables year-round propagation without seasonal constraints. It can increase multiplication rates, strengthen germplasm conservation and improve plants’ resilience to drought, salinity and other environmental stresses.
“These benefits are greater than ever in the age of climate change and rising stress on natural ecosystems,” said the academic.
Research in the field is already making significant contributions to Saudi Arabia, he said.
“Next-generation plant propagation, integrated with biotechnology, has the potential to fundamentally transform how Saudi Arabia interacts with its natural environment,” said Faisal.
“Saudi Arabia’s environmental conditions require science-driven solutions. Conventional propagation methods alone cannot supply the millions of healthy native plants needed for ecological restoration and sustainable landscape development. Next-generation propagation technologies allow us to produce high-quality planting material rapidly while conserving the genetic diversity of our native flora,” he added.
He explained that many indigenous Saudi plant species have low seed viability, irregular germination or slow natural regeneration, making large-scale restoration extremely difficult.
Advanced in vitro propagation can overcome these biological constraints by multiplying elite native plants under controlled laboratory conditions throughout the year, he noted.
Saudi Arabia has an incredible diversity of desert plants that have adapted brilliantly to survive in harsh climates, he informed.
“These species make up an invaluable national genetic resource. Biotechnology equips us not just to save them but to develop them sustainably as building blocks for ecological restoration, pharmaceutical research, landscaping, and climate-resilient agriculture,” said the professor.
The technology also has implications for national food security. Rapid propagation of elite varieties of fruit trees, vegetables, forage crops and medicinal plants could boost domestic agricultural production and reduce reliance on imported planting material, Faisal said.
“The incorporation of next-generation in vitro plant propagation and biotechnological tools would revolutionize the way we interact with nature in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
“Instead of just preserving ecosystems, we are now equipped with science; we can actively restore them, safeguard unique biodiversity, enhance food security, and create environmentally sustainable green landscapes that work for our environment,” added Faisal.
He further said: “It is a new paradigm, more than just a technological one: a new approach to developing a more resilient, knowledge-based bioeconomy, with science as a prerequisite for a sustainable environment.”
He stressed that sustained investment in next-generation in vitro plant propagation, biotechnology research and scientific capacity-building will be key to attaining Saudi Arabia’s long-term environmental and food security goals.
Next-generation plant propagation would be key to growing healthy, climate-resilient plants as the Kingdom intensifies efforts in environmental conservation, vegetation restoration and sustainable agriculture as part of Saudi Vision 2030, he added.
“These technologies can transform the way we experience nature in Saudi Arabia. They will help restore degraded landscapes, conserve our native plant biodiversity, strengthen food security, and support the development of more environmentally sustainable ecosystems for future generations,” Faisal said.
