Cryopreservation of sievers wormwood (Artemisia sieversiana Ehrh. Ex Wild.) seeds by vitrification and encapsulation

Abstract

Artemisia sieversiana is being used for the medicinal purpose, there are not many conservation objects, and the species is registered as a rare plant in Korea. There is also no research on the preservation of A. sieversiana seeds. In this paper, we investigated the preservation of seeds using cryopreservation. The vitality and germination rate of seeds were investigated with pretreatment, vitrification, and encapsulation. The initial germination rate of the seeds was 95%. PVS3 solution treated for 60 min showed the highest vitality, and germination rate. When encapsulation, both vitality and germination rate decreased. Changes in vitality rate during storage period were measured. As a result, the seed-maintained vitality when the vitrification solution used. Encapsulation is unavailable because of too much change. Therefore, seeds can be safely preserved without deterioration of vitality at cryopreservation by using PVS 3 solution and it will be helpful in future studies.