**4.3 Ginger, turmeric and related species**

Cryopreservation of Ginger (*Zingiber officinale* Rosc) and turmeric (*Curcuma lo*nga L.) shoot tips was successfully done with 80% of recovery using vitrification method. But the rate of recovery was only 40% when encapsulated shoot tips were dehydrated in progressive increase of sucrose concentration together with 4- 8 hrs. of desiccation (Peter *et al* 2001 and Ravindran *et al* 2004).

Efficient cryopreservation techniques were developed for *in vitro* grown shoots of ginger based on encapsulation dehydration, encapsulation vitrification and vitrification procedures (Yamuna et al 2007 and Yamuna 2007. The vitrification procedure resulted in higher regrowth (80 %) when compared to encapsulation vitrification (66 %) and encapsulation dehydration (41 %). The genetically stability of shoot apices was confirmed by molecular profiling. The RAPD and ISSR assays performed suggested that no genetic aberrations originated in ginger plants during culture and cryopreservation (Fig. 4).
