# A fruit grower wants to produce large numbers of a new variety of strawberry plant that produces unusually large, sweet fruits. The grower decides to use tissue culture to clone the new variety. Explain how tissue culture produces genetically identical plants and why this is useful to the fruit grower.

> OCR A-Level Biology B — Advancing Biology (H422) — 5.4 Cloning and biotechnology · Explain · 5 marks

> Tissue culture is a cloning technique used in horticulture. Small groups of cells are taken from a parent plant and grown into new plants under carefully controlled laboratory conditions.

## Mark scheme (5 marks)

1. Small number of cells (explant) taken from the parent strawberry plant
2. Cells are grown on a growth medium (containing nutrients / hormones) in sterile conditions
3. Cells divide by mitosis to produce new plants
4. The new plants are genetically identical to the parent plant because mitosis copies DNA exactly / no sexual reproduction occurs
5. This is useful because all plants will have the desirable phenotype (large, sweet fruits) and large numbers can be produced quickly

## Key terms

- [tissue culture](https://www.gradenine.co.uk/glossary/tissue-culture)
- [genetically identical](https://www.gradenine.co.uk/glossary/genetically-identical)

## Related

- [Revision notes for OCR A-Level Biology B — Advancing Biology (H422)](https://www.gradenine.co.uk/learn)
- [How to answer "Explain" questions](https://www.gradenine.co.uk/tools/command-word-cheatsheet)
- [Practice this with AI marking (free)](https://www.gradenine.co.uk/start)

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Source: [GradeNine](https://www.gradenine.co.uk/q/a-fruit-grower-wants-to-produce-794f0cf6) · Published by Druglandscape Ltd.