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w PT 7 ~ 'Fon en =11 EUF'ORGEN: Quercus suberNETWORK3. Presentations of the participants on country activitiesThe ongoing activities in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, as presented by theparticipants of the first two Network meetings, were published in the previousReport. At the Sassari meeting, representatives of all four countries providedupdated information on practical activities in the field, research and furtherperspectives. Portugal presented a paper on the identification of Regions ofProvenance and described a progeny test established in 1994. Besides thepresentation on marginal natural populations of Q. suber in Spain (see Objective 4 ofthe workplan), the first phase of an extensive genetic improvement programmeinitiated in the country was described. Preliminary results from analyses of geneticvariation among and within populations of cork oak in France, and comparisonswith populations from other parts of the distribution area using isozymepolymorphisms, were also presented.Genetic studies at DNA level are being carried out in Italy and a brief descriptionof these studies followed the country report at the meetjng. An interestingoverview of the methods of commercial evaluation of cork, developed in Sardinia,was also presented. The Italian participants announced their intention to establishan interdisciplinary and country-wide programme on Q. 5uber, with geneticresources being an important component.An introductory country report was given by M. Benzyane from Morocco.Absence of regeneration and overgrazing were emphasized as very serious threatsto the reproduction of genetic diversity in cork oak in Morocco._-Advanced genetic studies on cork oak have recently been carried out atlaboratories in Sweden and Germany.'The presented contributions with direct relevance to the conservation and use ofcork oak genetic resources in the participating countries are published in thisvolume.