Abstract
The South Caucasus is recognised as the primary Vitis vinifera L. (grapevine) domestication centre and has a high diversity of wild and cultivated grapevines. Archaeological findings indicate that winemaking activities have existed in Armenia for more than 6,000 years, viticulture being one of the most important activities of the modern Armenian agricultural sector. Despite this relevance, some grapevines in local collections have not yet been properly identified, thus hindering the efficient conservation, characterisation and eventual use of autochthonous genetic resources. In the present study, a combined SNP and SSR profiling strategy was used for the genetic identification of a series of grapevine accessions from the Grape Collection of the International Academy of Viticulture and Winemaking in Nalbandyan, presumed to be autochthonous Armenian varieties. The results provided useful information for the correct identification of these genetic resources, revealing multiple cases of synonyms, homonyms and misnames. The genetic data made it possible to confirm the pedigree proposed for some of the cultivars identified in this study and to clarify the origin of others. In addition, we propose, for the first time, a series of new trios and duos involving autochthonous Armenian grapevines. The singularity of this genetic pool compared to other Western and Central European varieties, as well as the potential novel sources of variability in traits of interest (e.g., seedlessness) that were found, highlight the importance of improving knowledge of the Armenian grapevine genetic pool.
Highlights
The South Caucasus is acknowledged as the primary grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) domestication center (This et al, 2006)
Twenty-four grapevine cultivars were identified via the parallel comparison of the 48-Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) genetic profiles with those stored in the ICVV-SNP database, and the 7-Simple Sequence Repeat (SSR) genetic profiles with international databases; the genetic profile of three accessions (AM16, AM17 and AM37), did not match the genetic profile of any previously registered grapevine varieties (Table 2)
After genotyping AM23 for VVMD28 by means of a simplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR), this accession was confidently identified as being ‘Muscat Ottonel’ (Supplementary Table 2), confirming the results obtained when comparing its 48-SNP genetic profile with those stored in the ICVV-SNP database, for which ‘Muscat Ottonel’ and ‘Muscat St
Summary
The South Caucasus is acknowledged as the primary grapevine (Vitis vinifera L.) domestication center (This et al, 2006). The presence of abundant wild grapevine populations and the Armenian edafoclimatic conditions, altitudinal variation, isolated valleys and soil types likely prompted the generation of highly diverse grape varieties that are adapted to the local conditions (Dallakyan et al, 2020), which have been exploited for grape cultivation and winemaking in Armenia until today (Barnard et al, 2011) Nowadays, some of these varieties are exclusively found in private vineyards or gardens, where owners preserve old vines for their own consumption. In 2016, most of the genetic resources stored in the Nalbandyan grapevine collection were transferred to Echmiadzin to be part of the new Armenian Grape Collection of the Scientific Center of Agriculture (Margaryan et al, 2019)
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