Cryopreservation of dried axillary buds from plantlets of Asparagus officinalis L. grown in vitro.

Dried axillary buds from plantlets of Asparagus lofficinalis L. grown in vitro were successfully cryopreserved. Single node segments (5mm in length) with axillary bud were taken from mature in vitro plantlets. The segments were precultured on solidfied Murashige-Skoog medium (1962) containing 0.7M sucrose at 25 °C in light for 2 days. Thereafter, these precultured segments were subjected to dehydration with silica gel at room temperature for 0 to 24 h. The axillary buds of precultured segments tolerated dehydration to about 14% water content(FW) with 50% lethality (LD50) and the threshold water content at which the dried buds remained alive after exposure to liquid nitrogen was 16.9%(LD50). The maximum rate of survival of cryopreserved buds was about 71% of untreated control. Surviving buds produced shoots and regenerated into plantlets. These results demonstrate the feasibility of cryopreserving dried axillary buds from in vitro plantlets.