Molecular Characterisation of the Apricot (Prunus armeniaca L.) Germplasm Regarding the Breeding Aims

The successful apricot production in Europe is often limited by adaptability or fertilization problems. Significant losses are caused by virus infection. There is clear market demand to spread the ripening season with new transportable and attractively coloured cultivars. To solve these tasks breeders need more information describing the apricot gene pool. Traditional methods based on pomological and phenotypic descriptions do not provide sufficient information to trace the expansion of apricot from the centres of origin; to expose the major genetic events in the evolution of cultivars or to identify and characterize genotypes during the breeding process. In this context, molecular markers have proved to be a powerful tool for solving the above problems. The least amounts of common alleles are shared between the Chinese and Middle European cultivars, indicating that these groups are distantly related. The germplasm of the present European cultivars is rather in Middle-Asia, Iran and Turkey. Genotypes from these regions could play crucial role in the European apricot breeding programs.

Keywords:

apricot , breeding , markers