The Vitis germplasm repository at the CRA-VIT, Conegliano (Italy): Conservation, characterization and valorisation of grapevine genetic resources

One of the main concerns for public research in viticulture is the need to safeguard grapevine biodiversity. Among the many ampelographic collections, one of the oldest and richest is maintained by the Agricultural Research Council - Viticulture Research Centre (CRA-VIT) in Conegliano, Italy. This grapevine repository was founded in 1923. As result of a continuous enrichment nowadays it consists of over 3600 accessions from 45 different countries, and it includes several species of the Vitis genus. The primary mission of this facility is the long-term conservation of a broad spectrum of wine and table grape cultivars as well as grape rootstock, both commercially used and not. The collection also includes various biotypes, representative of existing intra-varietal genetic variability, identified during the clonal selection programs. Specific objectives include the acquisition, maintenance, characterization, evaluation, documentation and distribution of grapevine germplasm. The accessions are maintained ex situ in field collections, and partially in vitro. The plants are characterized and evaluated on the basis of morphological, physiological, biochemical, genetic and agronomical characteristics. The collected accessions display a very wide phenotypic variability for many characters (e.g., shape and size of the leaves and bunches, colour, shape and size of the berries, presence of seeds, berry skin thickness, sugar accumulation, phenological periods, susceptibility to various pathogens, etc.). Selected nuclear simple sequence repeats (SSR) markers are routinely used for DNA fingerprinting of the whole collection to determine accession redundancy and to identify synonyms, homonyms, and mislabeling. The germplasm collection provides a valuable source of genes potentially useful in grapevine genetic improvement programmes. Moreover, the collection assembles a large number of different cultivars in a single environment and allows comparative studies on phenological models and evaluation of resistance/tolerance to biotic and abiotic stresses.