Cryopreservation of Citrus madurensis Zygotic Embryos by Modified Encapsulation-dehydration

Abstract

The rol e of osm otol erance and dehydr ation, in terms of both medium com posi tion and exposur e duration, on sur vi val ofem bryos of Citrus m adurensi s after cryopr eser vation usi ng the encapsul ation-dehydr ation and modified encapsul ation-dehydr ationmethod w as i nvest igated. By convent ional encapsul ation-dehydr ation m et hod, t he best sur vi val r ate was 45% wi th pr ecul turemedium cont ai ning 0.8M sucr ose al one for 16 hour s before desi ccat ion, but the sur vi val rate with precul ture medium cont ai ni ngmore than 1M sucr ose was less than 7.5% . Desiccat ion with si lica gel for 3hours gave highest sur vival of 57.5% where the mois-ture content of 29.6% . With m odified encapsul ation-dehydr ati method, the sur vi val rates of em bryos of C. m adurensi s were notaffected by loadi ng sol ution with CaCl2 and loadi ng duration. But the sur vi val of cryopr eser ved em bryos when loaded with 2Mglycer ol +0.6M sucr ose sol ution for 60 m i nutes show ed t he hi ghest , with 65% .