engleski

Vitis genetic resources in Croatia preservation, evaluation and revitalization of grapevine varieties

According some literature data, at the end of 19th and beginning of 20th century, there were more than 400 grape varieties in Croatia. Unfortunately, because of many reasons (introduced pests and pathogens, modern economic pressure and introduction of world well known cultivars), drastic erosion of autochthonous cultivars has occurred. In last decade, many efforts in the preservation of grapevine biodiversity in Croatia have undertaken. Detail inventarisation of vine-growing regions in Croatia has shown that lot of autochthonous cultivars still can be found, but many of them are endangered and for a long time neglected. To preserve them against the extinguishing, we have established since 2001 national ex situ collection at the Faculty of Agriculture in Zagreb, where we have collected 93 autochthonous accessions so far. Besides, we started to build few regional collections, to save duplicates and enable their economic evaluation in appropriate climatic conditions. Along with the multiplication into collection, amphelographic description (OIV descriptors) and genetic analyses (at least 6 core SSR loci) of cultivars have been carrying out. So far, 57 cultivars have known genetic profile, and additional 19 are in the progress. Comparison of the microsatellite genotypes of the analyzed cultivars with international varieties shows that most of them has unique genotype which supports hypothesis they are Croatian autochthonous cultivars. In few cases microsatelites were also useful in clarification of synonym and homonym questions as well as parent/progeny relationships. All this data, along with photos from different plant parts, are supposed to be entered in the electronic database. We have observed a high quality potential in case of some neglected cultivars, and we started economic revitalization for few most promising. Along with that, we started their clonal and sanitary selection.

vitis; genetic resources

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