Replication data for: Cryopreserved potato shoot tips showed genotype-specific response to sucrose concentration in rewarming solution (RS)

In an experiment with 16 clonal potato accessions, the use of RS sucrose concentrations of 0.6 M and 0.9 M showed on average ~ 5% higher recovery rate, compared to the routinely used 1.2 M sucrose concentration, suggesting that sucrose can be decreased in RS. A screening experiment with a set of 85 genetically diverse potato accessions confirmed this suggestion, and sucrose concentrations of 0.3–0.9 M resulted in significantly higher recovery rates compared to the routinely used 1.2 M sucrose concentration. The genotypic specific response to low (0.0 M) and high RS sucrose concentrations (1.2 M) was variable within species/subspecies and ploidy levels. Interestingly, some genotypes showed high recovery rates of ≥80% even when sucrose was completely removed from the RS. In general, the highest recovery was observed with a RS sucrose concentration of 0.6 M (“best bet”), and therefore CIP’s routine cryopreservation protocol for potato has been changed accordingly (from 1.2 M to 0.6 M RS sucrose concentration). We recommend being cautious in generalizing experimental cryopreservation results obtained with a limited number of accessions to larger collections.