The maintenance of plant genetic resources in living plant collections (genebanks) causes costs due to employment of staff, usage of buildings, equipment and consumables. Since this is especially challenging in vegetatively propagated material, studies were performed for the case of garlic, which is one of the major vegetatively maintained crops in the genebank of IPK Gatersleben...
Cytoplasmic genomes in most angiosperms are known to be maternally inherited. Oilseed rape (Brassica napus L.) as a natural amphidiploid species hence may carry the B. oleracea L. or the B. rapa L. cytoplasm, depending on the cross direction. The presence of either the B. oleracea or the B. rapa cytoplasm in oilseed rape has been reported to affect agronomically important traits...
Soybean cyst nematode (Heterodera glycines; SCN) is becoming a serious problem in azuki bean (Vigna angularis var. angularis) production in Hokkaido, Japan. To find sources of resistance to SCN, we screened wild relatives of azuki bean and calculated “female indices” (FIs) of 342 accessions from 8 Vigna species that are cross-compatible with azuki bean. Twenty-three accessions...
Anthracnose caused by the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum truncatum is a severe disease of lentil (Lens culinaris Medikus subsp. culinaris) causing premature defoliation and deep penetrating lesions on the stems leading to wilting and plant death. A total of 579 accessions from 20 countries were obtained from four germplasm collections in Russia, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary. The...
The object of the study comprised 54 grass pea (Lathyrus sativus) accessions originating from Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovak Republic, Poland, Ukraine and Russia together with 18 red pea (Lathyrus cicera) accessions from Greece, Spain and Italy. The plants were grown under the same conditions in Poland. Some phenological and morphological traits of plants as well as some seed...
The genetic architecture of crop domestication is generally characterized by three trends: relatively few genomic regions with major QTL effects are involved, QTL are often clustered, and alleles derived from the crop do not always contribute to the crop phenotype. We have investigated the genetic architecture of lettuce using a recombinant inbred line population from a cross...
Brazil is one of the main centers of origin of pineapple species presenting the largest genetic variation of the Ananas genus. Embrapa Cassava and Fruits is a Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and has an ex-situ collection of 678 accessions of the Ananas genus and some other Bromeliaceae. The use of ornamental pineapple has increased in the last years demanding new...
Resynthesized Brassica napus L. could be employed to increase the genetic variation in the narrow oilseed rape genepool and to establish a genetically distant genepool for hybrid breeding. One important criterion for selecting appropriate resynthesized lines is their genetic distance to adapted breeding material. In this study we estimated the genetic distances in a wide...
Glucosinolates are secondary components characteristic for the Brassicaceae with complex biological functions. Glucosinolates in the seeds are anti-nutritive when feeding animals and their inheritance have been extensively investigated. Much less is known about the genetics of glucosinolates in leaves and stems, which may attract some insects, while repelling others. They may...
Runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus L.) is traditionally cultivated in Poland for dry seeds. The national collection of runner bean maintained in the National Center for Plant Genetic Resources gathers 152 accessions, which are mainly landraces originated in Poland (68%), Ukraine (17%) and Slovakia (10%). The collection contains valuable genetic resources for bean breeders and...
Polymorphism of simple sequence repeat (SSR) loci was assessed in a collection of 88 carrot (Daucus carota L. subsp. sativus Hoffm.) accessions. The collection comprised cultivars and landraces mainly from Asia, Europe, and North America. Plants were grown in the glasshouse and characterized for root color and shape. Thirty SSR loci were fully characterized using parameters...
Thaumatococcus daniellii is a perennial African wild edible plant. Fruit arils from natural populations are the source of the protein sweetener, thaumatin. There are relatively few documented examples of its cultivation, however it has great potential as an intercrop for cultivation under rubber or cocoa. Across the species range there is notable diversity in leaf and fruit...
A wide range of variation in flowering time was observed within a diversity research set of 107 sorghum accessions ranging from 56 to 133 days. Accessions were classified into early medium and late flowering groups. 45 accessions were grown under three different environments of photoperiod (11, 12 and 15 h). Sorghum accessions gradually responded to the decreasing of day-length...
Lettuce, spinach and chicory are generally considered the main leafy vegetables, while a fourth group denoted by ‘minor leafy vegetables’ includes, amongst others, rocket salad, lamb’s lettuce, asparagus, artichoke and rhubarb. Except in the case of lettuce, central crop databases of leafy vegetables were lacking until recently. Here we report on the update of the international...
Juniperus procera is economically highly important but threatened tree species. It is the only species among 67 taxa in the genus Juniperus that naturally grows in Africa and south of the equator extending up to 18°S in Zimbabwe. Ethiopia is assumed to host the largest J. procera populations, which are also believed to have high genetic variation owing to their wide ecological...
Fifteen microsatellite loci were used to genotype 108 accessions of cultivated olive, Olea europaea L. ssp. europaea var. europaea, and eight of O. europaea L. ssp. cuspidata (Wall. ex G. Don) Ciferri, from the germplasm collection of the United States Department of Agriculture in Davis, California. Number of alleles per locus ranged from 3, for locus IAS-pOe12_A, to 16, for...
The capulín, or black cherry tree (Prunus serotina Ehrh.) is a tree with edible fruits native to North America that has been used not just as a source of food but also as a source of energy (its wood) since prehispanic times. Mexico has three of the five botanical subspecies in the P. serotina botanical complex, which have not yet been characterized for agricultural purposes. It...
Since 2007, the European Commission AGRI GEN RES 018 “CROCUSBANK” action has permitted the creation of the alleged World Saffron and Crocus Collection (WSCC), a unique collection which contains a representation of the genetic variability present in saffron crop and wild relatives at global scale. At present the germplasm collection, housed at the Bank of Plant Germplasm of Cuenca...
The aims of this study are to determine the geographical and ecological distribution of nine Aegilops species in Republic of Armenia and to make an assessment of their IUCN Red List status, using the IUCN Red list categories and criteria, in order to develop an in situ conservation strategy for wild relatives of wheat in Armenia. Ecogeographic surveys of nine Aegilops species...
A highly informative set of 16 microsatellite markers was used to fingerprint 695 apple accessions from eight Dutch collections. Among the total sample, 475 different genotypes were distinguished based on multi-locus microsatellite variation, revealing a potential redundancy within the total sample of 32%. The majority of redundancies were found between collections, rather than...
The aim of this study was to identify the group of highly polymorphic microsatellite markers for the identification of six pear cultivars (P. communis) and two individuals of wild pear (P. pyraster). From among 40 tested SSR markers, 19 were selected to profile genetic diversity in pear genotypes due to high polymorphisms. These markers showed high heterozygosity levels (0.5–1...
Minimal documentation exists for natural pollination in wild Vanilla spp., despite the economic importance of this genus, additionally commercial vanilla (V. planifolia Jacks.) is one of very few crops whose production depends entirely on artificial pollination. Flowering and fruiting phenology of Vanilla bicolor Lindl., a close relative of V. planifolia, was documented in a palm...
The breakdown products of glucosinolates (gsl) are biologically active secondary metabolites involved in plant defense and human nutrition. We identified and quantified 14 different gsl present in the young leaves of 82 different varieties of Brassica rapa, including the following crops: Chinese cabbage, broccoleto, Pak choi and other leafy vegetables, turnip, sarson and rapeseed...