Agricultural and Food Science, vol. 18 (2009): 101


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Preface
Customer Manager Marjatta Uosukainen

 
MTT Plant Production Research 

COST Action coordinates nationally funded research at European level with the purpose of creating net-
works that bring together European scientists. Cost Action 871 Cryoplanet, i.e. “Cryopreservation of Crop 
Species in Europe”, started in 2007. Cryopreservation is used for storage of viable plant germplasm at an 
ultra low temperature (–196 °C) in liquid nitrogen. Under cryogenic storage conditions, plant germplasm 
can be preserved safely over very long periods of time, theoretically in perpetuity, because metabolic and 
most physical and chemical processes stop at this temperature. 

Cryotechnique has been recommended for long-term preservation of plant genetic resources and it has 
been applied as a secondary preservation technique in collections of valuable germplasms.  In addition to 
cryopreservation, cryotherapy, a novel application of cryotechnology, has proved to be an effective method 
of eliminating diseases from infected plants. This new tool can be applied also in the production and main-
tenance of certified nuclear stocks of vegetatively propagated horticultural and staple crop plants. The rapid 
development of cryopreservation methods and protocols has opened possibilities for wider utilization of 
this technique in horticultural industry, particularly in combination with micropropagation. 

The scientific programme of Cryoplanet was developed with the input of researches in 17 COST 
countries.  The researchers of this Action represent a unique assembly of European scientists, with great 
experience in plant cryopreservation, tissue culture, stress physiology and/or gene bank management. Dr. 
Bart Panis (Belgium) is the Chair of and Professor Paul Lynch (UK) is the Vice-Chair of COST Action 
871 Cryoplanet. 

Two Working Groups (WG) are distinguished within the Action; WG1 on fundamental aspects of 
cryopreservation/cryoprotection and generic stability, and WG2 on technology implementation, transfer, 
application and validation in plant gene banks, culture collections and research groups. Coordinators of 
WG1 are Professor Pavel Pukacki (Poland) and Dr. M. Angeles Revilla Bahillo (Spain), and coordina-
tors of WG2 are Dr. Florent Engelman (France) and Dr. Joachim Keller (Germany). These two working 
groups organize WG meetings on a yearly basis, each one separately or the two together. In February 2008, 
joint 2nd WG Meetings were organized in Oulu, Finland, by the University of Oulu and MTT Agrifood 
Research Finland. This special issue of Agricultural and Food Science contains a selection of papers from 
the meeting of the two Working Groups.



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