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**17** 

*1,3Ghana 2South Africa* 

*4USA* 

**Cryopreserving Vegetatively Propagated** 

**Tropical Crops – The Case of** *Dioscorea* 

*1Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Crops Research Institute* 

Marian D. Quain1, Patricia Berjak2,

*2School of Biological and Conservation Sciences,* 

Elizabeth Acheampong3 and Marceline Egnin4

*University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, Durban* 

**Species and** *Solenostemon rotundifolius*

*3Tissue Culture Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra* 

Root and tuber crops in the Sub-Saharan African region play a major role in daily diet, accounting for over 50% of the total staple. *Dioscorea* spp. and *Solenostemon rotundifolius* are among the tuber staples in West Africa. *Solenostemon rotundifolius* (Poir) J.K. Morton is an edible starchy tuber crop known to have originated in tropical Africa (Schippers, 2000). It occurs in western, central, eastern and southern Africa. In Ghana, it is popular in the northern part of the country and its common name is Frafra potato (Tetteh and Guo, 1993). In South Africa, it occurs mainly in coastal KwaZulu-Natal, eastern Mpumalanga and northwestern Cape and it is commonly known as Zulu round potato (Schippers, 2000). It is used to combat famine as it has high protein content, and has medicinal and social values (Kay, 1973). It flowers profusely, yet has rare seed production and is therefore propagated vegetatively by means of vine cuttings and tuber sprouts. Storage of the tuber in hot climates is a problem. In Ghana, it is stored in dry places or left on the ground under trees where conditions are cool. The tuber is stored buried in the ground to maintain the good quality for about two months. Otherwise the tuber sprouts within a shorter period. However, in South Africa, the tuber stores well through the winter months

The germplasm is endangered because although field and *in vitro* gene banks are being used for conservation, these serve short to medium term purposes, and are expensive. Efforts to conserve the germplasm in the longer-term under slow growth *in vitro* are hampered by the relatively rapid growth of the cultures. Cryostorage which is recognised as the very safe cost effective option for the long-term conservation of genetic resources, especially vegetatively propagated species and crops with recalcitrant seeds (Engelmann & Engels., 2002) therefore

**1. Introduction** 

(Schippers 2000).

*4Plant Biotechnology and Genomics Research Laboratory, Tuskegee University* 

