engleski

Genetic similarity among Croatian and Greek grapevine cultivars assessed by SSRs

Due to clonal propagation, longevity and conservative attitude of wine makers and consumers in term of cultivar importance for wine uniqueness and quality, some of the present cultivars can be very old. Place of origin and dissemination routes for many cultivars are still mistery, especially in the Mediterranean. It is commonly believed that viticulture on the Eastern Adriatic coast is founded by ancient Greeks. Some of the present cultivars (e.g. 'Grk', 'Malvasia', 'Cipar') have names pointing to Greece as the possible place of their origin. Centuries of very alive trade along naval routes from Greece, via Dubrovnik, Dalmatian islands towards Venice and vice versa, make cultivar exchange as very likely. By the aid of SSR markers it is possible to study genetic relatedness among cultivars from different areas and to test the hypotheses on cultivar origin, i.e. to discover synonyms, closely related cultivars and in some cases even parentage. Approximately 30 Croatian and 30 Greek cultivars so far ungenotyped, being cultivated in the area along the ancient and middle age naval routes (islands and coast line), were screened by 10 SSR markers in order to check their genetic relatedness. Genotypes, genetic similarity indices and allele frequencies do not reveal any close genetic relative among two analyzed sets of cultivars.

grapevine; SSR; genetic similarity

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