Recent developments show that it is not necessary to develop new cryopreservation protocols for each new plant or tissue. While it is important to develop new techniques, it is currently possible to apply many of the standard protocols a variety of plants. Screening the diverse plants in a single genus shows that many protocols are easily applied. The protocol to use can be chosen from those developed for similar plants or several standard protocols can be tested. Our laboratory often compares controlled rate cooling, PVS2 vitrification, and encapsulation-dehydration techniques. Comparison of these techniques on diverse germplasm of pear, grass, blueberry, currants and mint provided clear choices of the best protocol to use for storing large collections. Once a protocol is chosen, some critical points can be adjusted to improve the plant response. Each of these methods has some basic steps that can be modified to make them effective for many types of plants. Finding a protocol for use with a new plant species may be as simple as testing available techniques for similar plants. Adjustments at critical points allow relatively quick adaptation of standard protocols to new groups of plants. These principles apply to tropical as well as temperate plants. Preliminary knowledge of the plant species can also provide clues for choosing a technique. Certain parameters may help predict success or failure for a particular group of plants. These parameters may also provide opportunities for improving plant adaptation to cryopreservation.
