Abstract
Despite the widespread use of tissue culture as a means of propagating begonias and concerns regarding the preservation of germplasm, little information is available on the cryopreservation of these commercially important plants. For this reason studies were conducted to develop an encapsulation–dehydration method for the cryopreservation of adventitious shoots of the rhizomatous begonia,
Begonia x erythrophylla
. Adventitious shoots of
B. x erythrophylla
were found to be sensitive to dehydration and very sensitive to freezing. While pre-treatment with 0.75 M sucrose significantly increased the percentage of encapsulated shoots surviving dehydration, pre-treatment with sucrose did not afford cryoprotection without prior dehydration. Addition of abscisic acid and proline to the pre-treatment medium significantly improved the percentage of shoots surviving freezing. Pre-treatment of shoots with a medium containing, 0.75 M sucrose, 3.8 μM abscisic acid and 2.15 mM proline resulted in greater than 50% of shoots surviving freezing.