8,000 Peruvian potato varieties to join world's largest banana collection
To preserve this many varieties, the bioengineers use a cold chamber - containing test tubes with small banana plantlets of 3 to 4 centimetres—and cryotanks with plant stem cells in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -196 degrees Celsius. "By using this method of cryopreservation, we can preserve the stem cells for hundreds of years and even regenerate them to a normal plantlet."
The CIP, the International Potato Centre in Peru, manages a collection of potatoes, sweet potatoes and other tuber and root crops from the Andes, and is convinced of the success of the technology used in Leuven. "They also use cryopreservation to preserve potatoes and will soon send us a copy of their own collection of 8,000 potato varieties," Swennen continues.
source: phys.org
