In 2014, FAO, through its Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, published the Genebank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. They provide international standards for ex situ conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture in seed genebanks, field genebanks, in vitro culture and cryopreservation. To increase the utility of these standards, FAO has been developing a series of practical guides that will be useful for genebank technicians as operational handbooks; for genebank managers as streamlined instructional materials and for all interested in genebank operations, a handy reference material. One of the recent practical guides is dedicated to “Conservation via in vitro culture”. In vitro culture is a plant biotechnology that involves application of tissue culture procedures to germplasm accessions, which are kept under slow-growth conditions as sterile plant tissues or plantlets on nutrient gels. See https://doi.org/10.4060/cc0025en or contact [email protected] for more information.