Plant cryopreservation

Plant cryopreservation is a genetic resource conservation strategy that allows plant material, such as seeds, pollen, shoot tips or dormant buds to be stored indefinitely in liquid nitrogen. After thawing, these genetic resources can be regenerated into plants and used on the field. While this cryopreservation conservation strategy can be used on all plants, it is often only used under certain circumstances: 1) crops with recalcitrant seeds e.g. avocado, coconut 2) seedless crops such as cultivated banana and plantains or 3) crops that are clonally propagated such as cassava, potato, garlic and sweet potato.