LAHORE, April 8: The Lahore College for Women University’s botany department in collaboration with the Punjab Agriculture Department established a “Plant Tissue Culture Lab” in Bagh-iJinnah here on Wednesday.
The lab was inaugurated by LCWU Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Bushra Mateen and Punjab Floriculture Director Dr Muhammad Tariq Iqtidar.
The utility of this venture is to provide students an opportunity to produce a disease-free variety of seeds that will yield healthy crops.
The lab will cater to the production of utility fruits and vegetables like bananas, cherry, tomatoes, green chilies and expensive flowers like Lilium, Carnation. This produce will be cost-effective.
“Our researchers have targeted medicinal plants like Bryophylum to deal with its antifungal and anti-bacterial impact and Vinca plant for anti-cancer and anti-ulcer therapy” said Prof Mateen.
The agriculture department has established the laboratory and green houses while the LCWU will equip it with all necessary instruments. The university will also help in courses of floriculture and landscapes, which are now being arranged by the agriculture department.
The laboratory is an implementation of the MoU signed in July 2007 between the LCWU and the agriculture department. The tenure for the agreement is 25 years.
All the management, production and overall control of tissue culture lab, and green houses will be operated solely by the LCWU due to security purpose of students and female faculty members.
“The research and development will boom with the establishment of the laboratory with the existing well-built green houses and the garden having a large biodiversity of different species of plants.
This facility will provide an opportunity of research to BS, MS and PhD students. These students will get training in different disciplines of plant tissue, culture techniques, hardening and acclimatization methods, technology of green house management and off season vegetable production.
These well-trained human resources can act as a good scientist in this society,” associate professor of the botany department Dr Shagufta Naz said.