Seed cryopreservation of Robinia pseudoacacia L.

Cryopreservation by storing explants in liquates nitrogen (LN) at -196°C is a new and most important method of preserving plant species for a long period. Most of seeds, vegetative organs, cells and pollens can be preserved for a long time, by cryopreservation. Cryogenic conditions stop much of the metabolic processes of the cells and, period of preservation dramatically increases.Three pretreatments including vitrification (PVS2), desiccation and 30% glycerol were applied on the seeds of Robinia pseudoacacia L. collected from Chitgar Park at west of Tehran, before transferring them into LN. After one month storage in LN the seeds transferred into warm water bath at +42 °C as a postreatment. Then they were germinated under laboratory and greenhouse conditions. Different attributes including seed germination percentage, root and shoot lengths, germination speed, root/shoot length ratio and seed vigor index (VI) were recorded. The attributes were significant at 1% level of probability revealed the cryotolerance of the seeds. In greenhouse experiments, plants developed from cryogenic seeds grew normally and did not show any abnormality compared to those of the control plants and desiccation showed the best effects on survival rate and other attributes of the cryopreserved seeds. The results indicated that the cryopreservation (-196 °C) technology can be used for long-term preservation of the Robinia pseudoacacia seeds.