Cryobanking: a valuable tool for conserving tropical plant genetic resources – insights from the National Gene Bank of Tropical Crops in China

Plants maintained in situ or as field collections are at greater risks from extinction due to extreme weather conditions and the overexploitation of wild genetic resources.
This is particularly true for tropical plant species naturally distributed or cultivated in South China.
Therefore, the National Genebank of Tropical Crops (NGTC) was established in Danzhou, Hainan in 2019 to facilitate ex situ conservation of valuable tropical crop species.
From 2018 to 2023, an in vitro genebank was established for over 1900 clonally propagated accessions of 45 families, and phenotypic variations were noted from some in vitro conserved species.
Cryopreservation is of great potential to minimize somaclonal variations and enables the safe and long-term conservation of plant genetic resources.
However, the establishment of a cryopreservation protocol faces more challenges for tropical species.
This review focuses on the role of cryobanking in the safe conservation of tropical crops and introduces the efforts made to implement cryopreservation at the NGTC.

IV International Symposium on Plant Cryopreservation

Min-Rui Wang, Zhiying Li, Yunliu Fu, Bilan Huang, Xiao-Bing Wang, Jiabin Wang, Li Xu

cryopreservation, droplet-vitrification, tropical crops

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2025.1421.17