Cryopreservation of Black Chokeberry In Vitro Shoot Apices

In vitro shoot apices of black chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa Elliott) were successfully cryopreserved utilizing three methods, namely vitrification, encapsulation-vitrification and encapsulation-dehydration. Encapsulation-dehydration and encapsulation-vitrification, however, seem preferable to vitrification, since the highest respective survival levels of apices (71.1 ± 2.2% and 77.8 ± 4.4%) by both methods were higher than that (60.0 ± 3.9%) by vitrification. In encapsulation-dehydration, the highest survival was achieved when the moisture content of beads was reduced to 19% by drying with silica gel for 6 h. In the present study, it was shown that adding 1.0 M glycerol to beads and loading solution during encapsulation-dehydration resulted in high survival (91.7 – 95.0%) regardless of lines and polyploids of black chokeberry.