conference schedule and program with abstracts - Horticulture ...

K-2
Progress in grapevine breeding
R. Eibach* and R. Töpfer
Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, Julius Kuehn Institute, Institute for Grapevine
Breeding, Geilweilerhof, Siebeldingen, Germany
*Corresponding author: rudolf.eibach@jki.bund.de
Since the introduction of phylloxera and the mildew diseases from North America to Europe
during the second part of the 19 th century, grape breeders around the world have been engaged in
introducing into the gene pool of the European quality vines resistance traits existing in wild
American and Asian species. Meanwhile these activities have led to remarkable success,
resulting in cultivars with high wine quality and a high degree of resistance against downy
mildew as well as powdery mildew, allowing a considerable reduction of plant protection.
Nevertheless it can be stated that breeding progress in the past has had considerable limitations.
Apart from the long generation cycle, the extensive evaluation necessary for a range of complex
traits as well as the time-, labour- and space consuming cultivation of grapes are major
restrictions. As a consequence, knowledge about the genetics and the inheritance of viticulturally
important traits like resistance or quality characteristics was poor. However, substantial progress
on these aspects has been achieved in recent years. Various research groups have generated
genetic maps for various genetic backgrounds which allowed the identification of different loci
carrying genes for crucial traits, especially resistance traits. The establishment of marker assisted
selection (MAS) as a new tool for grapevine breeders offers plentiful possibilities for increasing
breeding efficiency. It allows not only monitoring the segregation pattern of these resistance loci
in the progeny but also identifying the genotypes with multiple resistance loci. This pyramiding
by MAS should lead to a higher and an increased sustainability of the resistances. Similarly
MAS allows a targeted selection of parents which have the potential for pyramiding resistance
loci in their progeny. The establishment of elite breeding lines with homozygous resistance loci
is another option which can only be realized by MAS. From such parents all offspring carry the
resistance loci. Finally, MAS allows an accelerated introgression of desired traits from wild
species into the gene pool of Vitis vinifera. The use of marker assisted selection for the target
locus combined with a background selection for a high percentage of Vitis vinifera genome
speeds up this process considerably. Summing up, it can be stated that the described newly
available breeding tools and strategies will mark a paradigm shift from empirical to knowledgebased
breeding.
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