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The wild vine, ancestor of the European vine grown around the world, is a valuable source of genetic improvement for a more sustainable agriculture. Indeed, it has "innate" features which, if recovered by genetic improvement, could give greater resilience to the domestic vine in the face of the challenges of climate change, resistance to water deficit, high temperatures and agents. pathogens.
This is demonstrated by a study coordinated by researchers from the Food and Environmental Center, a joint academic structure of the University of Trento – Edmund Mach Foundation (C3A) in collaboration with the University of California, published in the journal of the Nature group "Horticulture Research"
. The genetic improvement programs of the vineyard focused solely on the resistance present in the American species Vitis. On the other hand, the international team of researchers wanted to compare 48 vines of Vitis vinifera sativa, the one currently cultivated, with 44 individuals of Vitis sylvestris, or wild progenitor.
The researchers studied the differences between cultivated and wild subspecies. rediscovering genes or gene variants lost in domestication processes, which in the past had been useful to the wild plant to survive the difficulties of the environment.
"European wild vines are at risk of extinction – confirms coordinator of the international team and professor of Stella C3A – but in germplasm collections and in regions of Central Asia it There are still some resources to explore which, we hope, will attract the attention of the breeder and those who can help protect wildlife. "
A search for not only remaining on paper: being the cross between the" modern "vine and its wild" great grandmother ", an intra-species coupling, of sylvestris, they would not have no limit for DOCs and no negative characteristics would be conferred on wines.
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