Cryopreservation lab of the Federal Ex Situ Genebank for agricultural and horticultural plants at the Leibniz Institute (IPK), Germany. Photo: © Leibniz Institut (IPK)
Grant Scheme Activity
Phase X
Working Group activities and related events
September 2024
The Garli-CCS-Cryopreservation workshop was held on 17-20 September 2024 in Prague, Czech Republic. [More info]
May 2024
The Training School on Dormant Bud Cryopreservation was held in Faenza, Italy, from 21-23 May 2024. For more information, including the presentations given at the meeting, click [here]
February 2024
The Training School on Dormant Bud Cryopreservation was announced in February, aiming to transfer the knowledge acquired by three cryopreservation teams (CNR-IBE (Italy), Crop Research Institute (Czech Republic) and Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke)) to other institutions dealing with cryopreservation. Organized by the ECPGR Cryopreservation Working Group, the Training School will be held in Faenza, Italy, from 21-23 May 2024.
Working Group members interested in participating in this course, please contact your National Coordinator, who should send a nomination for each country. Applications to the ECPGR Secretariat are open until 9 March 2024. [More info]
May 2023
The first meeting of the Cryopreservation Working Group was held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 3-4 May 2023 [more info]
December 2022
The project on 'Genotyping-by-sequencing of the European garlic collection to develop a sustainable ex situ conservation strategy (Garli-CCS)' – submitted by the Allium, Cryopreservation, and Documentation & Information Working Groups for funding under the Sixth Call of the Phase X ECPGR Activity Grant Scheme – was selected by the Executive Committee. [more info]
August 2022
Miloš Faltus (Czech Republic) and Bart Panis (Belgium) were appointed as co-chairs of the Cryopreservation Working Group. For more information, read the Letter of appointment (320,3 KB).
February 2022
The ECPGR Working Group on Cryopreservation was established.
Working Group operative documents
Background information
According to the independent expert Feasibility Study for a Safety Back-Up Cryopreservation Facility commissioned to investigate and provide recommendations for the long-term secure conservation of recalcitrant seed and clonal crops, eight research institutes in seven European countries apply cryopreservation as a routine method to conserve their crop genetic resources. These include crops grown in Europe such as apple, citrus, garlic, grape, mint, hops, potato and strawberry, as well as tropical crops important for the European markets such as coffee and banana. Currently, about 4,500 accessions are cryopreserved in Europe, almost half of the world’s cryopreserved accessions. Nevertheless, many thousands of accessions remain at risk.
The Cryopreservation Working Group objectives include:
- Document the status of cryopreservation and the presence of long-term storage facilities as well as of experienced cryopreservation researchers in Europe
- Ensure that plant cryopreservation research in Europe is maintained at a critical mass to enable continuing advances in the science
- Ensure that European crop collections conserving species with non-orthodox seeds have access to cryopreservation technologies in order to store their germplasm safely for future generations
- Investigate the possibility for cryopreserving orthodox seed collections with a focus on species with short-lived seeds including many vegetables such as leeks, onions and parsley
- Explore the application of cryopreservation to crop wild relatives or wild species and trees
- Increase collaboration between European scientists and institutes holding crop collections to establish a European Cryo Hub
- Create one or more cryopreservation backup facilities
- Develop new biobank technologies and data management systems for cryopreserved collections.
Related Information
Useful links
- Cryopreservation: A long-term strategy for hard-to-conserve PGRFA collections in a post-COVID world, an international expert panel organized by the Secretariat of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture and the Global Crop Diversity Trust
- Feasibility Study for a Safety Back-Up Cryopreservation Facility, Independent Expert Report, July 2017