Abstract: Shoot rips of apple (Malus domestica Borkh.cv.Golden Dellicious)dormant buds were successfully cryopreserved by using three different methods(vitrification, encapsulation-dehydration and two-step freezing), the regeneration rate arrived to 83% after cooling to liquid nitrogen.As the dormant shoot tips have been cold hardened in winter and have lower water content, it became the value materials of cryopreservation.After pretreated in vitrification solution(PVS3: 50%glyceros+50%sucrose)for 80 min at 25℃ or desiccated in air-flow for 4 h(the water content is about 30%)by using encapsulation-dehydration method, the shoot tips can be plunged into LN directly.The dormant shoot tips could regrow directly after cryopreservation.The experiments demonstrated that the selecting of material physical state is a very important factor during cryopreservation, which could not only simplify the cryopreservation protocols, but also improve the practical useness of cryopreservation, in order that to establish the cryopreservation genebank of plant germplasm earlier.

Key words: Malus domestica, Dormant shoot tips, Cryopreservation