Plant Tissue Culture Training Facility

The Plant Tissue Culture Training Facility was set up in 2005 to train students in the mass propagation of tissue culture plantlets as well as to serve the horticulture and landscaping industry. A spin-off of Project Heliclone, a one-million dollar project funded by A*STAR done in collaboration with Jurong BirdPark, the facility applies protocols developed by the project to propagate rare and exotic plants such as heliconia and gingers.

Apart from training students in plant tissue culture techniques, the facility also exposes students to the workflow of a production setting, from the propagation of plantlets to the packaging and commercialisation of the final products. To date, the facility has trained over 50 students under various schemes, such as the Differential Research Programme and the Student Internship Programme. To foster closer ties between partners in education, the facility has also been training ITE students under the Industrial Attachment Programme since November 2006.

While the facility started with just the production of heliconia and red alpinia gingers, the types of plants produced by the facility have increased over time. 2006 saw the addition of the Pink Alpinia Ginger, Costus French Kiss and Costus Amazonicus to the product list. These plants have been sold to landscaping companies as well as gift shops at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. An agreement was also signed in December 05 to mass propagate orchid plantlets for Woon Leng Nursery. Thousands of orchid plantlets are now being grown at the facility. These plantlets will eventually be supplied to commercial growers as well as orchid hobbyists.

Plantlets that have been produced for sale at local souvenir shops