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NEWSLETTER Articles
First meeting of the ECPGR Working Group on Vitis.
12-14 June 2003,
Palić, Serbia and Montenegro
PART I - FINAL DRAFT
PART II - BOOK OF ABSTRACTS
Workplan agreed in June 2003
The European Vitis Database
Vitis
Working Group members
Vitis
Meetings & Reports
Conservation and sustainable use of grapevine genetic resources in
southeastern Europe
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Latest news
An ad hoc meeting on fingerprinting of Prunus, Malus / Pyrus and
Vitis was held in East Malling, United Kingdom, on 7-8 December 2006. A second ad hoc meeting
will follow in Gembloux, Belgium in 2008, on synonymy of Prunus, Malus / Pyrus and Vitis cultivars.
An ad hoc meeting of the four Fruit Database Managers (Malus, Prunus, Pyrus and Vitis)
is planned to be held in 2008 as well (place and date to be confirmed). In the same year, an
ad hoc meeting on in situ and on-farm conservation of Prunus, Malus / Pyrus
and Vitis is planned to be held in Dresden, Germany.
The Working Group met for the first time in Palić, Serbia and Montenegro, on 12-14 June 2003.
The WG will continue the networking activity along the lines initiated by the EU-funded project.
Link with EU project
The EU-funded project
GENRES CT96 081 (European Network for Grapevine Genetic Resources
Conservation and Characterization), which started on 1 March 1997 and ended
on 28 February 2002, included among its members 12 partners from the European Union
(Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) and 7 partners
(partially supported with ECPGR funds) from non-EU countries
(Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Slovenia and
Switzerland).
Objectives of the project were the following:
Establishment of an European grapevine genetic resources database with free
access via Internet to enhance the utilization of relevant and highly
valuable germplasm in breeding
Choice, recording and registration of primary descriptors with an agreed
standardized protocol implemented by all participants. Target varieties are
rare and misnamed grapevine cultivars
Choice, recording and registration of secondary descriptors (resistance to disease,
factors for wine and table grapes quality). Target varieties are those with
potential value in breeding work
Identification of duplicates and rare grapevine cultivars, establishment of
national and possibly international core collections to reduce maintenance
costs by sorting out the collections
The European Vitis Database
The EU project established the
European Vitis Database, now comprising passport data of more than 28 200
accessions, representing the Vitis collections from 18 European contributors.
It contains primary description on more than 600 accessions and
secondary description of about 300 accessions, focusing mainly on old and
neglected native varieties. The identification of varieties was assisted by
including photos (about 1 000) from different parts of the vine of 250 accessions.
The Group members agreed on the opportunity to update the existing data and to complete
the database with inclusion of missing data. It was clarified that it would also be appropriate
to continue including in the database accession data related to hybrids, rootstocks and wild species,
including Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris conserved in European collections.
The Group also agreed to adopt the EURISCO descriptors 1 – 33 (i.e. the extended list of the
28 FAO/IPGRI Multi-Crop Passport Descriptors + 5 specific EURISCO descriptors) for the new
version of the European Vitis Database. See:
ANNEX I - Full list of agreed passport descriptors, including instructions and examples |
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ANNEX II - Passport data and descriptor recording rules for the compilation of the European Vitis Database |
Characterization and evaluation
The GENRES 081 participants considered Sequence Tagged Micro-Satellite (STMS)
markers as an appropriate tool for true-to-type assessment. STMS-marker data,
obtained in different laboratories of the GENRES 081 partners, produced
reliable results by encoding the allele length with example variety codes.
Microsatellite markers database
The Vitis Working Group decided to start the establishment of an SSR-marker database
as part of the European Vitis database. In the medium to long-term, the SSR-markers
database will become part of the European Vitis Database. This will include all the
available marker data and the possibility to query for varieties corresponding to a specific
data profile will be an additional feature of the database.
In order to facilitate the rapid establishment of a comprehensive Vitis SSR-markers
database, the Working Group on Vitis decided to recommend the following practice to
researchers working with Vitis SSR-marker analysis:
Recommendation to researchers working with Vitis SSR-marker analysis
A comprehensive SSR-marker database will be of benefit for the whole grapevine
community. Therefore, it is highly recommended to include, in each SSR-marker
research, at least the six microsatellite loci indicated below, which would allow immediate comparison with
the variety identification data obtained by the GENRES 081 project. The six microsatellite loci are the
following: VVS2, VVMD5, VVMD7, VVMD27, ssrVrZAG62 and ssrVrZAG79.
It is recommended to use the reference cultivars according to the six corresponding OIV
descriptors to achieve comparability and for the expression of allelic sizes in the coded format,
e.g. MU1, or CS1, etc.
Data sent to the SSR-marker database should be provided in the coded format (see:
Appendix II). Allelic sizes
can be provided as well.
SSR-marker data sent to the database manager should be accompanied by the
following passport information: Institution code (of the institute holding the
accession subject of the analysis), Accession number, Accession name, Variety
name (if identified), Name and Internet address of the institution providing the
SSR-marker data and reference to a published article, if appropriate.
In order to verify the true to typeness of the variety, whenever possible microsatellite data
should be accompanied by ampelographic descriptor data plus photographic documentation.
The European Catalogue of grapevine varieties
The European Commission is giving high priority to the establishment of a European Catalogue of
grapevine varieties aiming at creating an Internet database including all varieties officially
accepted for commercialization of the propagating material.
In the updated
EC directive 68/193 (marketing of vegetative propagating material of vine) it
was possible to introduce the wording “under consideration of the biodiversity” in Art. 3 (5)a
of
Council Directive 2002/11/EC concerning possible elimination of standard material of a variety.
Therefore it will be necessary to be able to document intra-varietal genetic diversity in order to
have good arguments to oppose possible requests for elimination of standard material in the near future.
Clones and variety preservation
The ECPGR Working Group on Vitis stressed the high importance of the diversity of grapevine
cultivars for the future generations. It was reiterated that without this diversity, viticulture
and enology is endangered and the consequence of genetic erosion would be a uniform viticulture,
which would be susceptible to any kind of biotic or abiotic stress.
The Group expressed deep concern for the ongoing serious genetic erosion of the grapevine
variability and clonal diversity. The causes of this erosion can be listed as follows:
Increase of international trade
Predominance of a small number of varieties in several countries
Predominance of few clones of each single variety
Replacement of old vineyards by plantations with modern cultivars
Decrease of viticultural surface, especially in those sites particularly rich in biodiversity
Restrictive laws not allowing the use of traditional varieties for plantation and marketing
The Group recommended that:
Each country should maintain its own traditional varieties in national or regional ampelographic
collections and should also protect Vitis vinifera ssp. sylvestris in situ
Each country should strive to preserve the clonal variability, compatibly with its own
possibilities. This preservation action comprises identification of old vineyards, prospecting and
collecting of clones representing the widest intra-varietal variability. According to the French
experience (see: abstract), depending on specific cultivar
variability and history, up to 500 clones per variety are necessary for the establishment of clonal
conservatories.
Background information
In October 2001, the ECPGR Steering Committee agreed on the establishment of a
Working Group on Vitis, as a result of a request submitted by the project partners of the
EU-funded project on Vitis, which was terminated in February 2002. The objective is to strengthen
European collaboration for the purpose of improving the conservation and sustainable use of Vitis genetic
resources in Europe.
For more information or comments:
Please contact the Chair of the Working Group:
Mr Jesús María Ortiz [click here]
and Vice-Chair: Mr Edi Maletic [click here]
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