After fusing, the reconstituted primate embryos were transferred into nine Macaques, two of whom became pregnant and delivered healthy, genetically identical offspring. The results of the cases that did not work were not reported. In previous cloning experiments, deformed offspring were produced in addition to the reported cases that were reported as working. The trees will become a common sight in Indonesia once an automated plant near Jakarta opens later this year. The plant will be able to handle 10 million seedlings a year.
Tissue culture makes it possible to create plant clones with identical characteristics.
But until now it has been too expensive for use in commercial forestry. Each group of cultured cells generates a cluster of shoots, which must be individually plucked and placed in a growth medium, where they turn into seedlings. Monfori Nusantra, a joint venture between the agricultural chemicals giant Monsanto and ForBio, an Australian plant biotechnology company, has found a way to use robots for some of the work. The robots drastically cut the cost of what had been a labour-intensive technique. ForBio's robots will be able to produce 750 embryonic trees an hour.