Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1994

Publication Title

Transactions of the ASABE

Publisher

American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers

Abstract

Unitized, nonselective mass cutting of Stage II Citrullus lanatus cv. Charlee (watermelon) plant tissue cultures has been achieved with various configurations and sizes of wire cutter devices. Time studies revealed that the wire cutters increased the productivity of the cutting function over conventional scalpel and forceps by a factor of 14, Total transfer productivity, including the manual functions of removing tissue from an initial culture vessel and filling (sorting and placing cut tissue segments) new vessels, was increased by a factor of 1,8, The square grid-type cutting devices yielded from 48 to 59% as many viable bud clusters per culture vessel as hand cutting and from 65 to 95% as much tissue fresh weight. An oriented-cell configuration of wire cutter actually increased tissue fresh weight about 20% over hand cutting. The simplicity of construction and quality of material of the wire cutter render it readily autoclavable and highly flexible to function both as an aid to small operations and as an element in more sophisticated mechanical devices for larger operations.

Comments

This work was published Open Access in Transactions of the ASABE. The published version may be found here: http://www.asabe.org/


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