Technical Abstract: Some have proposed that it is necessary to develop new cryopreservation protocols for each new plant or tissue. We have found that standard protocols can be applied to many plants with few if any changes. Screening of groups of plants in a genus show that many protocols are easily applied to large groups of plants. The protocol to use can be chosen from those developed for similar plants or several standard protocols can be tested. We often compare controlled rate cooling, PVS2 vitrification, and encapsulation-dehydration techniques. Comparison of these techniques on diverse germplasm of pear, grass, blueberry and mint provided clear choices of the best protocol to use for storing large collections. Once a protocol is chosen, some critical points can be adjusted to improve the plant response as needed. Each of these methods has some basic steps that can be modified to make them effective for many types of plants. Finding a protocol for use with a new plant species may be as simple as testing available protocols for similar plants. Adjustments at critical points allow relatively quick adaptation of standard protocols to new groups of plants. Preliminary knowledge of the plant species can also provide tools for choosing a technique and certain parameters may help predict success or failure for a particular group of plants. These parameters may also provide clues for future protocol improvements.