Acta Hortic. 1234. ISHS 2019. DOI 10.17660/ActaHortic.2019.1234.45 Proc. III International Symposium on Plant Cryopreservation Eds.: K. Thammasiri et al. 343 Developing coconut cryopreservation protocols and establishing cryo-genebank at RDA; a collaborative project between RDA and Bioversity International H. Wilms 1 , J.H. Rhee 2,a , R.L. Rivera 3 , K. Longin 1 and B. Panis 4 1 Laboratory for Tropical Crop Improvement, KU Leuven, Heverlee, Belgium; 2 National Agrobiodiversity Center, RDA, Jeonju, Korea; 3 Philippine Coconut Authority, Zamboanga, Philippines; 4 Bioversity International, Belgian office, Heverlee, Belgium. Abstract Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is one of the most important palms in the world. Storing coconut for a long term in a conventional seed genebank is not possible because its seeds are recalcitrant. Also field genebanks are not effective as they are prone to unknown undesirable climatic factors and diseases. Cryopreservation has been defined as a welcome alternative for field genebanks for the conservation of coconut germplasm. To develop and validate robust cryopreservation protocols for coconut and exploring the potential for other priority species, a collaborative project between the Rural Development Administration of Korea (RDA) and Bioversity International was initiated. In the framework of this project, three letters of agreement (LOAs) were finalised between Bioversity International and (i) The Sunchon National University (SNU, Korea), (ii) University Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium) and (iii) the Philippine coconut authority (PCA, the Philippines). In this report, we present an overview of some of the activities, as well as some preliminary results. It showed that coconut embryos can be effectively transported with normal air courier services and normal plants can be grown therefrom. Also small meristem tips excised from in vitro plant can grow into normal plants. Finally, the 1-mm sized meristems excised from plants can survive the droplet-vitrification protocol. Keywords: coconut, meristem, cryopreservation, embryo, vitrification INTRODUCTION Coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) is one of the most important palm trees in the world (Nguyen et al., 2015). Coconut palms produce highly recalcitrant seeds that are big, sensitive to desiccation and show no dormancy (N’Nan et al., 2012). The recalcitrant nature of the coconut seeds makes them difficult to be stored for a long term using conventional techniques. Maintenance of coconut collections in a field genebank is also risky since it is prone to exposure to unknown climatic factors and disesases (Withers and Engels, 1990). Cryopreservation of plant tissues in liquid nitrogen (-196°C) could be the only method allowing safe and cost effective long-term conservation of recalcitrant seed species such as coconut (Engelmann and Takagi, 2000; N’Nan et al., 2012). Cryopreservation has been defined as a welcome alternative for field genebanks for the conservation of coconut germplasm (Sisunandar et al., 2010; Sajini et al., 2011). Research activities for the development of a robust cryopreservation protocol for routine use are being actively pursued with various degrees of success. For cryopreservation of coconut, a whole range of explants can be used; zygotic embryos, plumules excised from zygotic embryos, somatic embryos and shoot meristem tips. Cryopreservations of coconut zygotic embryos, as well as their plumules have both been successfully developed but are still not applied in a large scale (Nguyen et al., 2015). Developing and validating robust cryopreservation protocols, starting with coconut and then exploring the potential for other priority species has a paramount significance. A project was a E-mail: rheehk@korea.kr