# Somatic cell fusion appears to be the only means through which two different parental genomes can be recombined among plants that cannot reproduce sexually (asexual or sterile).
# Protoplasts of sexually sterile (haploid, triploid, and aneuploid) plants can be fused to produce fertile diploids and polyploids.
# Somatic cell fusion overcomes sexual incompatibility barriers. In some cases somatic hybrids between two incompatible plants have also found application in industry or agriculture.
# Somatic cell fusion is useful in the study of cytoplasmic genes and their activities and this information can be applied in plant breeding experiments.