Bringing Better Grapes a Step Closer to Reality

Molecular breeding of grapes has been started in the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to expedite grape improvement. Grape, one of the world's most important fruit crops, takes three years to fruit, making traditional breeding expensive and time consuming. The ARS team from Ithaca and Geneva in New York whose research work has been published in Plos One, has developed a fast and inexpensive way to identify genetic markers for grape breeding as well as in breeding other crops using modern genetic approaches.

Using the technology, the researchers sequenced representative portions of the genomes from 10 cultivated varieties, six wild varieties and the Pinot Noir clone whose sequence has been completed in 2007. Genetic markers in the form of single nucleotide polymorphisms were selected and act as signposts to study the relationship of the varieties with each other. In addition, the technology will also expedite the identification of portions of the grape genome for desirable traits as well as identify origins of other types of plants, characterize relationships in other plant collections, and accelerate genetic mapping efforts in a number of crop species.

View the story for more details at http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2010/100323.htm