For many horticultural species such as seedless plant species, species that produce recalcitrant seed as well as plant species that are propagated vegetatively to preserve the unique genomic constitution of cultivars (such as fruit and several timber and ornamental trees), cryopreservation is the only valuable solution for the safe long term storage. Moreover, besides its use for the conservation of genetic resources, cryopreservation proved to be extremely useful for the storage of plant tissues with specific characteristics, such as medicinal- and alkaloid-producing cell lines, hairy root cultures, genetically transformed and transformation-competent culture lines.
This issue of Acta Horticulturae contains a selection of the contributions made at the “first International Symposium on Cryopreservation in Horticultural Species” that was held in Leuven, Belgium from 5 to 8 April, 2009. This event was a co-organization of the COST Action 871, CRYOPLANET of the European Science Foundation and ISHS (International Society for Horticultural Science).