The preservation of pear germplasm, like that of other clonal germplasms, is difficult because it requires conservation of whole plants or their tissues. Among the currently available methods for long-term conservation of clonal germplasm, cryopreservation of shoot tips is the most reliable and cost- and space-effective option. Alginate-coated axillary shoot tips from in vitro−grown pear were conserved successfully in liquid nitrogen (LN) following dehydration. Shoot recovery from cryopreserved shoot tips was improved greatly after 8 weeks of cold acclimation, but recovery decreased slightly after then. The highest regeneration rate was observed when in vitro shoot tips were preincubated in MS (Murashige and Skoog) medium with 0.3 M sucrose for 48 h, and when alginate-coated shoot tips were precultured in MS medium with increasing sucrose concentrations (0.5 M and 0.7 M) for 8 and 16 h, respectively. When the encapsulated beads were dehydrated for up to 7 h [25% water content (fresh weight basis)] under laminar flow, the highest regeneration rate was observed in “BaeYun No. 3” (55.7%) and “Whanggeum” (43.3%) after warming from LN. This technique is useful as a practical procedure to cryopreserve plant material that is sensitive to freezing of the surrounding cryoprotectant medium. Therefore, this technique appears to be promising for the cryopreservation of shoot tips from in vitro−grown plantlets of pear germplasm.

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L.) shoot tips grown in vitro were successfully cryopreserved by encapsulationvitrification. Encapsulated explants are very easily manipulated, due to the relatively large size of the alginate beads, and a large number of samples can be treated simultaneously. In this study, the effects of sucrose preculture, cryoprotectant preculture, and post-warm recovery media on regrowth, following liquid nitrogen (LN) exposure, were investigated to establish an efficient encapsulation-vitrification protocol for sweet potato. Shoot tips of plants grown in vitro were precultured in 0.3 M sucrose for 2 d before encapsulation. Encapsulated shoot tips were pre-incubated in liquid MS (Murashige and Skoog) medium containing 0.5 M sucrose for 16 h, before preculturing in sucrose-enriched medium (0.7 M sucrose) for 8 h. Shoot tips were osmoprotected with 35% plant vitrification solution 3 (PVS3) for 3 h, before being dehydrated with PVS3 for 2 h at 25°C. The encapsulated and dehydrated shoot tips were transferred to 2 mL cryotubes, suspended in 0.5 mL PVS3, and plunged directly into liquid N. High levels of shoot formation were obtained for the cv. Yeulmi (65.7%) and Yeonwhangmi (80.3%). The regrowth rates of cryopreserved samples in Yeulmi (78.9%) and Yeonwhangmi (91.3%), following culture on ammonium-free MS medium for 5 d, were much higher than those cultured on standard MS medium (65.7% and 80.3%, respectively). This encapsulation-vitrification is a promising method for the long-term preservation of sweet potato.

Twenty apple germplasm accessions from the Korean Genebank were successfully cryopreserved using two-step freezing to back up genetic resources maintained by field collections. This study examined the morphological and genetic stability of cryopreserved dormant apple buds that were stored in liquid nitrogen, and then rewarmed and regrown. Whole plants were regenerated directly from dormant buds through budding without an intermediary callus phase. The cryopreserved buds produced high levels of shoot formation (76.2-100%), similar to those of noncryopreserved buds (91.3-100%), with no observed differences between cryopreserved and noncryopreserved materials. Three of the twenty cryopreserved apple germplasm accessions were used to assess morphological and genetic stability. No differences in morphological characteristics including shoot length, leaf shape, leaf width/length ratio, and root length were observed between controls (fresh control and noncryopreserved) and cryopreserved plantlets. The genetic stability of regenerants (before and after cryopreservation) was investigated using inter simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers. The ISSR markers produced 253 bands using four primers, ISSR 810, SSR 835, ISSR 864, and ISSR 899. These markers showed monomorphic banding patterns and revealed no polymorphism between the mother plant and regenerants before and after cryopreservation, suggesting that cryopreservation using two-step freezing does not affect the genetic stability of apple germplasm. These results show that two-step freezing cryopreservation is a practical method for long-term storage of apple germplasms.

We micropropagated pear (Pyrus species) using shoot tips and nodal explants from three pear genotypes. The ability to establish shoot tip cultures, proliferate shoots, induce rooting, and acclimatize the resulting plantlets are all elements of in vitro micropropagation. Shoots were induced from shoot tips on Murashige and Skoog medium (MS) with five different plant growth regulator combinations. The highest shoot formation rates were achieved for the three genotypes using MS supplemented with 1.0 ㎎/L N 6 -benzyladenine (BA) and 0.1 ㎎/L gibberellic acid (GA3). The maximum shoot number and shoot length for the three cultivars were recorded with 2.0 ㎎/L BA and 0.2 ㎎/L indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) in multiplication medium using nodal explants produced from microshoots. Nodal explants with one or two axillary buds cultured for three weeks initiated roots on medium supplemented with various concentrations of 1-naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) or/and IBA in half-strength MS medium for adventitious rooting. The highest rooting response was with the combination of 0.2 ㎎/L NAA and 0.2 ㎎/L IBA. A combination of NAA and IBA resulted in a significant increase in the rooting ratio over NAA or IBA alone. In this medium, the root formation rate according to ranged from 68.9% for the BaeYun No. 3 genotype to 51.8% for the Hwanggeum genotype. We also investigated the influence of the concentration the polyamine phloroglucinol in rooting medium. For all three genotypes, the highest rooting ratio, longest root length, and greatest root number were observed in the treatments with 75-150 ㎎/L phloroglucinol. Most rooted plants were acclimatized successfully.