ARS | Publication request: Strategies for improved fruit crop cyropreservation

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: May 1, 2011
Publication Date: June 28, 2011
Citation: Volk, G.M. 2011. Strategies for improved fruit crop cyropreservation [meeting abstract]. In: Proceedings of The First International Symposium on Cyropreservation of Horticultural Crops in China, June 28-30, 2011, Yangling, Shaanxi, China. p 43.

Technical Abstract: Fruit crop collections kept in fields or greenhouses are expensive to maintain. Cryopreservation has been implemented as a method to back-up some of these costly collections, but it is a labor-intensive process. My laboratory has been working toward finding practical approaches to decrease the labor inputs and costs of the cryopreservation process. These include ensuring that the appropriate conservation target is used (shoot tips, dormant buds, pollen, seeds) and that the cryopreservation strategy increases the likelihood of survival with less handling. Recently we have identified successful methods for conserving diverse Citrus species using shoot tips derived directly from screenhouse-grown plants. We are in the process of determining if similar methods can be applied to critical grape and avocado germplasm collections.