Il progetto “Maspes” per il miglioramento varietale di albicocco e pesco

An apricot and peach breeding program is ongoing in the south-eastern Po Valley (Italy), with the support of both public and private funds, including growers organizations. The program is aimed at the introduction of new cultivars adapted to the climatic conditions of the region and featuring disease resistance and outstanding fruit quality traits. Other than traditional breeding procedure (standard crossing breeding operation,growing of the progeny in the field and its evaluation, followed by comparative trials of the advanced selection with commercial cultivars), tools for marker-assisted selection are being developed taking advantage of the peach genome sequence and innovative marker platforms. The breeding stock is made up of more than 23,000 apricot and less than 20,000 peach seedlings. Recent introduction for apricot are ‘Bora’, ‘Pieve’ and ‘Petra’ and for peach is the early ripening, yellow flesh ‘Bordò’, as well as three yellow nectarines of the ‘Rebus’ series: ‘028’, ‘038’ and ‘195’. For marker-assisted selection, one apricot and five peach progenies have been phenotyped for two growing seasons and molecular linkage maps were constructed. QTLs have been found for major traits, e.g. fruit mass, total soluble content, acidity, aromatic compounds, and maturity date. The search of markers closely associated to loci of interest is in progress.