How our Agar Compares to the Competition

Table of Contents

PCT Agar vs Phytotech Agar

What is Agar?

Agar is a polysaccharide obtained from seaweeds and is most commonly used as a solidifying agent in plant tissue culture media. Some growers use Phytagel in place of Agar as the gelling medium in a tissue culture operation. Which one is better depends on the details of your specific application. Agar is best used in MS media at .7% of its concentration.

Why is it important in the tissue culture process?

Plant tissue culture media should generally contain some or all of the following components: macronutrients, micronutrients, vitamins, amino acids/ nitrogen supplements, source(s) of carbon, undefined organic supplements, growth regulators and solidifying agents. Agar is most often used as the solidifying agent and is important in the tissue culture process because the solidity of the culture medium greatly influences the growth of the cultured tissues.

Agar has several advantages over other gelling agents. When mixed with water, it melts at a range of 60 - 100 degrees Celsius and solidifies at 45 degrees Celsius. Additionally, it does not react with media concentrations between .8 - 1.0%.

When finding the right medium for your tissue culture process, it is wise to consider the strength and transparency of your gel. For Agar, strength should preferably be greater than 800g/cm2, and transparency should be lower than 10 Nephelometric turbidity units (NTU).

What options exist for Agar?

To aid in your tissue culture process, we put together a list of some of the industry’s top Agar providers, and linked the Certificate of Authenticities of the companies supplying each. Below this list, you will find Plant Cell Tech’s COA along with a comparison. Despite having a very similar composition to the Agar of our competitors, PCT’s comes at a fraction of the price.

Here is a list of the top you can find in the space.

Phytotech - 1kg = $210.89, 5kg = $755.51

Bio world - 1kg = $132, 2.5kg = $298.30 , 5kg= $596

Caisson - 1kg = $111.63, 5kg = $553.09

Carolina - 500 g = $137.50, 1KG = $254.35 (COA is upon request only)

Sigma - 1kg = $324 , 5KG = $1300

Why Plant Cell Tech?

We offer a wide range of quantities to accommodate your tissue culture needs. Whether you are a personal grow operation with a DIY tissue culture kit or a large corporation with a full-scale tissue culture lab, we have affordable options for you.

Our Pricing:

100g = $22

500g = $55

1kg = $85

Quality you can trust. We believe in transparency and are willing to test our products against others in the space. We have a stringently tested the options in the market to find Agar that competes with the best in the business. Since we understand the importance of the product in the tissue culture process, we have worked hard to make it available to our customers at a fraction of the price.

Affordability. We don’t believe that your fight against microbial contamination should be a burden to your wallet. We have traveled across the world finding partners in the space to ensure that our Agar is both high-quality and affordable for our customers.