Medium- and Long-Term Conservation of Ornamental Plants Using Synthetic Seed Technology

Abstract

Synthetic seed (synseed) describes artificially encapsulated plant tissues, usually somatic embryos but also other vegetative parts that can be propagated into complete plants under in vivo or in vitro conditions. Synseed technology can be utilised for medium-term storage and long-term conservation of valuable ornamental plant germplasm. Synseeds can be conserved in vitro for several years through maintenance of encapsulated propagules at low temperatures (slow growth storage technique) or they can be preserved theoretically ad infinitum at the ultra-low temperatures of liquid nitrogen. In this chapter, we review recent studies in the conservation of various ornamental plant species using synseeds developed from different plant explants (i.e. somatic embryos, protocorm-like bodies, shoot tips, bulblets and axillary buds).